


No Place Like Home

by randi2204



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: 2K Round-up Challenge, Crack, Crack Crossover, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randi2204/pseuds/randi2204
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherever - and <i>whatever</i> - this place is that he's landed in, Chris just wants to get back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Place Like Home

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** The Magnificent Seven belong to MGM, Mirisch and Trilogy. The other *cough* blatantly obvious *cough* fandom also belongs to MGM. In any case, none of it is mine.

 

Chris Larabee wasn’t from Kansas, and in no way could he be considered a young farm girl.  He was a gunman – some said nothing more than a hired gun – and he’d lived through more than any innocent little girl from a farm in Kansas could even imagine.

 

He did rather think that Kansas was… _dull_ and flat, about as interesting as cold flapjacks without syrup or honey.  He’d been across it on his way west, and that was enough.

 

Moreover, Kansas was cyclone territory; on a stormy summer day, a wind funnel could pick up a house and turn it to kindling in an instant.  Much safer dodging bullets, he decided, and put Kansas and its many dullnesses and dangers right out of his mind.

 

Dodging bullets was dangerous enough.

 

New MexicoTerritory wasn’t cyclone territory, though dust devils did spin up in the desert, and even in the street from time to time; tiny little things no bigger than a minute, and no more likely to cause damage to man or building than a small black dog could bite through boot leather.

 

In fact, there was a little black dog in town.  It started to follow him around, underfoot all the time, and it always wagged its tail whenever he spoke to it.  Chris discovered it was a male dog when he came around a corner and saw him trying to mount a bitch that was easily twice his size.  It amused him enough that he decided to keep the dog, and started calling him Buck; it just seemed to suit him somehow.

 

It was the dog that decided him in favor of buying the land and building a home; once you had a dog, it was only right that the dog have a place to guard.  Or to cheerfully greet people who meant Chris no good, which Buck often did.

 

But despite claim jumpers and other unwashed sorts, eventually the tiny cabin was finished and furnished.  Buck promptly claimed a spot at the foot of the bed as his sleeping spot, and managed to wheedle his way into sitting in one of the two chairs when Chris ate dinner.  Given the way that Buck had just bulled into his life, Chris was glad that it wasn’t the one _he_ sat in for meals… and at least the dog took his own meals from a plate on the floor.

 

Chris finished his home not too long before the blazing heat of summer fell upon them.  Buck lay on the porch, panting, too hot to do anything other than try to keep cool.  Chris availed himself of a bucket of well water over his head, and Buck quickly learned to join him.  Even when the dog’s fur became a matted mess from all the water and mud, Chris felt too sorry for Buck not to stop.

 

The air was heavy the morning Buck jumped up onto the bed.  “Hey,” Chris grumbled, and tried to shove him out again.  “You know you don’t belong up here.”

 

The dog got down, only to hide underneath the bedstead, and not even breakfast could lure him out again.  It was only hours later when Chris felt the air go very still that he realized what Buck had sensed with his animal instinct.  It was cyclone weather, even this far from Kansas.  Cursing, he hurried back inside the cabin and bolted the door.

 

He’d only just gotten inside when that stillness broke with an awesome noise.  Chris looked outside, saw the storm dark sky and an even darker funnel snaking its way across the ground.  Trees whipped in the gale it created as it passed by.  It was making its way toward the cabin, getting closer with every zig and zag it made.

 

“Oh, Christ,” he muttered.  He hadn’t put a storm cellar under the cabin; hell, he hadn’t thought there was a need.  Would they be safer inside or out – risking getting killed by the beams falling on their heads or being crushed by flying debris?

 

Then the decision was taken out of his hands as the twister reached them, and the whole house _trembled_.  It creaked and groaned and just when Chris was certain it would fly itself apart under the strength of the winds, somehow it didn’t.  He heard something tear loose with a snapping sound he felt in his bones.

 

Outside the window, trees and debris and all manner of things were rushing by, and the shack was _rocking_ from side to side, none too gently, like a rowboat on a storm-tossed sea.  Chris edged his way closer to the window, one arm raised to protect his eyes in case the glass shattered, and felt his stomach drop into his feet.

 

It wasn’t just the funnel whirling things around them; _they_ were whirling around, too. The twister had lifted the whole cabin up off the ground, and they were _flying_.

 

Just for a second he glanced back at the bed, gauging how tall it was, and if there was enough space for him to crawl under it with Buck.  In the end, he decided at least the mattress would offer some cushioning in case they made a rough landing and retreated to sit on the edge of the bed.  “We’re in for one hell of a ride,” he said, and discovered he had to nearly shout to be heard over the wind.

 

He had no idea how long they were actually in the air whirling around, but that twister must have been the strongest one anyone had ever heard of, because he saw all manner of strange things out the window.  There were fish swimming against the wind, cows still chewing their cud as the twister bore them far from their pasture, even a man on horseback, who nodded politely when he saw Chris peering out the window. 

 

But by far the strangest was Mary Travis – she was the one who’d accused him in her newspaper of being nothing more than a gun for hire.  She was walking in the air just as if she were walking down the main street of town, her bright hair and dark skirts whipping in the wind.

 

Then she wasn’t walking anymore, she was astride a broom; not riding it as a child at play would, making believe it was a pony, but perched on it as if she were riding sidesaddle, with the straw bristles behind the bustle on her skirt.  And her clothes, too, changed – her skirt still dark and flowing, but now the high-necked blouse was black, too, as if the sleeve protectors she used while running her printing press had lengthened to cover her whole arm and front.  Strangest of all was the hat she wore, tall with a point, and black from the tip to the wide flat brim, with a sheer black veil flowing from the top.

 

“Miz Travis?” he wondered aloud, and she turned to stare at him as if she’d heard him.  Then she smiled, a slow, evil curl of her lips, pressed down on the broom handle and flew away, hair and veil and skirts streaming behind her

 

“What the hell is goin’ on here?”  Chris’s hand drifted to his gun, as if to make sure it was still there at his hip.  It was, thankfully, so his hand stayed there, looking for the slim reassurance the gun could give.

 

He had no idea how long the cyclone kept the house in the air, but after a while, he noticed that there wasn’t as much debris swirling around the cabin, and it wasn’t quite as difficult to keep his balance.  When he made his way over to the window and peered down, he could see a patchwork quilt of greens and browns – and realized that they were _falling_ when the patchwork suddenly resolved into fields and meadows and trees.

 

“Hang on, Buck!” he shouted over the sudden absence of wind, throwing himself back onto the bed and bracing for the impact.

 

The shack landed with a thump that made the windows rattle in their frames.  Gun in hand, Chris held himself still for a long moment.  When nothing happened – no one pounding on the door, demanding to know what he thought he was doing – he holstered it again and nudged Buck out from under the bed with his foot.  “C’mon,” he said.  “Let’s go see what the damage is.”

 

Buck seemed to approve of this idea; he trotted eagerly over to the door, glancing back over his shoulder to see if Chris was following.

 

The door still hung square in the doorway, giving no hint as to what lay beyond, so Chris opened it carefully.

 

There was no danger out there that he could readily see… but it wasn’t _home_ either.  The scrub brush had disappeared, and so had the familiar hill and dusty track to town.  In their place was a place of vibrant color – everything seemed deeper and richer and… and more _itself_.  The blues ranged from the intense blue of the sky to a shade of midnight so deep it was nearly black, the yellows were all sunny and bright, and the reds were all so vivid as to inspire amazement.  Even the grass was a brilliant green that New MexicoTerritory never saw.

 

Buck’s fur seemed somehow other than black, like there were other colors hidden down at the root, and even his own clothes looked different; the flat black of his coat wasn’t flat anymore, like it had a fine sheen of glittering sand blasted into it.

 

Once he got past the blinding colors, Chris saw that he’d landed in some kind of roadway; his boots rang out against the yellow and red bricks of the roadbed.  It spiraled out from a post that his cabin had only just barely missed; one arc was red, the other yellow.  Beyond the road were a cluster of houses, all of them small, no bigger than his own.

 

Just then, as he studied the houses trying to figure out what was different about them, he caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye; when he turned to follow it, he couldn’t find it again.  He shot a glance at Buck, but the dog was happily sniffing around the post in the roadway and clearly hadn’t noticed anything amiss.  “Some guard dog _you_ are,” Chris muttered.

 

Before he could start looking for whatever it was he’d seen, a bubble appeared over the rooftops.  It glistened like a soap bubble, but it was bigger by far than any soap bubble he’d ever seen, and seemed to glow from within.  When it landed on the roadway, he half expected to hear a loud _pop_ , but it just kind of… fell apart.

 

Even stranger, inside was a man.

 

He had dark skin, darker than an Indian’s, more like that of a former slave.  He wore a homespun shirt, and trousers and boots that had seen better days; the trousers were spattered with mud to the knee, and the heavy boots were caked with it.  His expression was indignant, and he stood with his hands fisted on his hips; one clutched a slender stick topped with a star.

 

“That a weapon of some kind?” the black man asked, making a motion with his chin toward the gun once again in Chris’s hand.

 

“Yeah, it is,” Chris replied in the same belligerent tone.  “I just got dropped here.  I got no idea where I am, and I don’t know you… or any of your friends,” he added, at last catching a good look at one of the men who’d been creeping up from the houses.

 

The black man looked over his shoulder, then rolled his eyes.  “Oh, for heaven’s sake… none of ya mean the other any harm.  Y’all just show yourselves, and _you_ ,” he said to Chris, waving at the gun in his hand, “put that away before it… does somethin’.”

 

The men – _Indians_ , Chris thought, now he’d seen their broad features – clustered around and behind the black man.  They didn’t have any weapons with them, at least none he could see.  There were more of them than there were of him, and despite the scars on his knuckles for all the fights he’d been in, he’d never been fond of getting the shit kicked out of him, so he put up his gun.

 

The black man relaxed a bit, even smiled a little, and it was a pleasant, warm kind of smile, unlike the one that Miz Travis had worn when he’d seen her.  “So now… what kind of witch are ya?”

 

“Witch?”

 

The black man nodded. “Yeah.  Your house came down smack on the Wicked Witch of the East there.  Only someone with a hell of a lot of magic could do that.  So, you a good witch or a bad witch?”

 

“What?” Chris spun around to stare frantically at his house.  From under the porch, a pair of feet stuck out, clad in a pair of woman’s boots, with a hundred buttons up the front and high heels behind.  He could see something silvery on each foot, just above the heel, in a shape that was vaguely familiar.

 

If there was a woman under his cabin, then she was clearly dead; no one could survive _that_.  But Chris didn’t even think about that; he just started toward the cabin.  “C’mon! Maybe if there’s enough of us trying to move it, someone could pull her out!”

 

“Stranger, don’t matter if we lift that house off her right this moment, she’s still dead.” The black man’s words brought him up short, and he turned around, about to light into him.

 

Then Chris caught sight of the expression on his face, the sad set of his mouth, and the words he was going to spit out just dried up in his mouth.  This man cared, even though the woman – witch? – crushed under his house was, according to his explanation, evil.

 

The black man caught him watching, and that distressed look disappeared.  “She held the people in this part of Oz under her sway a long time, tried to crush the life outta them.  Now she’s gone, they’ll likely be better off.” He shrugged as if to say that it wasn’t anything to lose sleep over.

 

Chris considered that for a moment, what that said about this black man, then nodded.  “Well, I ain’t no witch at all. I’m just a horse rancher back where I’m from.  Name’s Chris Larabee.” He held out his hand.

 

After a startled moment, the black man clasped it firmly.  “Nathan.  I’m the Witch of the North.  Not like that one,” he added quickly, gesturing with his free hand, before Chris could even react.  “A good witch.”

 

“And your friends?”

 

Nathan glanced behind him.  “They’re the folk who live here in the east of Oz.  The Wicked Witch called ‘em Injuns or redskins, but they call themselves Nee.  Means ‘the People’ in their language.”

 

Just then, something exploded off to his left, and Chris dove, landing hard against the yellow and red bricks of the roadway.  When he recovered his breath, he glanced back to see what was going on.

 

Green and black tendrils of smoke were still streaming away from a woman in a flowing black dress and a tall pointed hat.  Her back was to him, so he couldn’t see her face, but he could see the broom she held, clutched in one hand so tightly that it trembled.  He was struck with a terrible sense of having seen her before.

 

“I thought you said she was dead,” he hissed at Nathan, who lay on the ground not too far away, having also flung himself away from the explosion.

 

“She is,” Nathan replied testily, pushing himself up.  “This is her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West.  She’s twice as evil as the other.”

 

He took another look and saw that this witch’s hair was dark where Mary’s – the Wicked Witch of the East’s – was fair.  Otherwise they were much the same size… and their taste in clothes ran the same way.  _Maybe they really_ are _sisters,_ he thought.

 

“Who did this?” the woman screeched.  “Who killed my sister?”

 

Buck started barking at the sound of her voice, and they weren’t the playful kind of barks that Chris had heard him use before.  These were barks that meant business, as deep and menacing as his little body could make them.  Chris climbed to his feet, then scooped Buck up to quiet him.  Buck subsided into a soft snarl, and Chris figured that was good enough.

 

“That’s my house,” he said, mild as he could manage.  “But I didn’t mean for it to land on M—your sister.  It was an accident.”

 

The witch turned around when he spoke.  Her elfin features were twisted in rage, so that whatever beauty she might have had was swallowed up… but still, something struck him as familiar about her, despite the green tinge to her skin.  “An accident?” she demanded shrilly. “I’ll show you an accident.”  She stepped toward him, her hand raised and twisted into a claw shape.

 

Nathan stepped smoothly in front of him.  “I think maybe you’re forgettin’ somethin’,” he said in a voice like ice.  “What about your sister’s silver spurs?”

 

The witch paused and her eyes flared wide, glinting with a kind of greed.  “Yes!  Her silver spurs!”  She spun back toward the cabin, and the feet still pathetically sticking out from underneath.  But just as the witch reached for her sister’s feet, they shriveled up and the house settled with a groan.

 

“What is this?” the witch demanded.  “What did you do?”

 

 _Christ,_ Chris thought with a grimace, _if I gotta listen to this screechin’ much longer, I might do somethin’ drastic._

 

“I didn’t do nothin’,” Nathan replied, crossing his arms and glaring at the witch.  “But those spurs are outta your reach now.”

 

“And just what do you mean by that?”  The witch raised her broom as if to strike Nathan with it.

 

But Nathan didn’t flinch.  “I mean just what I said – you can’t have them spurs.”

 

“You think you’re protected,” the witch sneered.  “Let’s see how your protection spell stands up to the strength of my fire spell.”

 

Nathan rolled his eyes.  “Them silver spurs are where they belong,” he said sternly, and uncrossed his arms to point at Chris.  “See?”

 

Chris glanced down in surprise.  His own spurs had disappeared, and in their place, he wore the silver spurs that had graced the heels of the witch.  He tapped the heel of his boot against the cobbled roadway, and the jingle bobs chimed sweet and clear.

 

The witch shrieked, and he barely kept hold of Buck when he would have leapt out of his arms.  Buck growled, harsh and threatening, struggling to get down.

 

“Calm down, Buck,” he told the dog.  “You don’t wanna bite her – Jesus, she might give you somethin’.” He smirked at the witch, all the while wondering just where he’d seen her before.

 

“You might think wearing my sister’s silver spurs makes you safe,” the witch said, stepping up close to him and making him want to back away.   Buck snapped at her and she jumped back, glaring.  “But I can take them from you the same way they were taken from my sister.  I’ll get you, pretty boy.”  She ran one finger along the line of his jaw, and he shivered at the touch; her hand was cold, the skin dry and rough.  “Just you wait.”

 

Moving away again, she swept her broom around herself in an arc, and was engulfed in more sickly smoke.  This time, Chris expected the explosion that accompanied her departure and tried not to flinch at the sound.  Just as the smoke started to float away, an arrow flew through the space where she’d been.

 

“Reckon that could have gone better,” Chris said, and bent to release Buck.  Buck promptly trotted over to sniff where the witch had stood.

 

Nathan snorted.  “Don’t see how it coulda gone worse.”  He eyed Chris appraisingly.  “She’s gonna be comin’ after you now, tryin’ to get those silver spurs.”

 

He studied his foot again, the graceful line of the spur flowing out above his heel, the tapered spokes of the rowel, the shadows of the etchings in the silver.  “Well, they sure are pretty,” he said, and had to suppress a shudder at the word, “but that can’t be why she wants ‘em so bad.”

 

“You’re right, it ain’t.”  Nathan heaved a sigh.  “They’re a powerful charm.  Makes the spells of the person wearin’ them even stronger.  She’s wanted them ever since the Wicked Witch of the East found them.  If your house hadn’t fallen on her sister, chances are she would have done her in herself sooner or later.”

 

“What a nice family,” he muttered.  “Seems like it’d be best if I went back home.”  He glanced at the cabin.  “Just… I don’t think I’m gettin’ home the same way I got here.”

 

“No, don’t look like you are,” Nathan agreed.  “If you were a witch, you could just use a transportation spell, get you back where you came from.  You sure you’re not?”

 

Despite the situation, Chris smiled as he shook his head.  “Nope.  Don’t have a lick of magic.”

 

“Hm.”  Nathan considered him for a moment, tapping his thumb against his lips.  “Well, guess you’ll have to go to the Emerald City, see the Wizard.  Maybe he can send you home.”

 

“At this point, I’ll try just about anything.” He snapped his fingers; at the sound, Buck stopped sniffing around and came to sit at his feet, tongue lolling out, just as if he hadn’t been trying to bite the Wicked Witch’s fingers off a little while ago.  “Where’s this Emerald City?”

 

“All you have to do to get there is follow the Yellow Brick Road,” Nathan said, grinning as he waved one hand toward the ground.  “It’ll take you right to the gates of the Emerald City.  The Wizard is kinda touchy… claims sometimes he ain’t no wizard at all.  He’ll do his best to help you, though.  He’s a good man.”

 

Chris made his way to the point where the yellow bricks appeared, flowing away from the post in the road, then took a few steps along the arc.  The road straightened, and he could see it stretching west into the hazy distance, running between fields and through forest, until it disappeared.  He turned to Nathan, who had waved his stick with a star – a wand, maybe? – and whose bubble was reforming around him.  “You got a horse I can ride?”

 

“’Fraid not,” Nathan replied just as the bubble closed up and floated away into the sky.

 

Chris stared down the long, long road for a long, long moment, then he sighed.  “Not gonna get anywhere just standin’ here,” he said, and set off.  Buck followed behind him, as fast as his short little legs could carry him.

 

His feet were sore but he’d covered a good distance when he hit a dilemma.  The yellow road forked at the corner of a cornfield, leaving Chris with the impression that whoever had built the road had had to detour around it because it had been there first.  One branch continued fairly straight on, while the other split left.  Both prongs of the fork went on over the gently rolling hills until they disappeared.

 

He glanced down at Buck, who sat down and looked back at him inquiringly.  “Well, which way do you reckon?” Chris asked the dog.  Buck just panted, tongue lolling.

 

“Some folk turn to the left.”

 

Chris started at the voice, for, except for Buck, he’d believed himself alone.  But now he noticed a man in the cornfield, hanging on a post.  _No, not a man,_ he realized, taking in the straw tufting out at various joints.  One arm pointed to Chris’s left.  _A scarecrow. Well, scarecrows can’t talk._

 

He was considering the left branch when the voice came again.  “Other folk go straight ahead.”

 

Tearing his eyes away from the left branch, he searched for the source of the voice, hand on his gun, before taking a look at the right fork the scarecrow pointed toward.  It was just as empty as the left.

 

Then he studied the scarecrow again, frowning.  _Hadn’t he been pointing the_ other _way?_

 

Buck wandered over to the fence around the cornfield, sniffing at the posts.  Then, with a happy little yip, he skinned under the lowest rail and into the field, making the tall stalks of corn rustle and wave with his passage.

 

“Buck!” Chris called.  “Get back here!”  He swung over the fence and carefully pushed his way through the corn.  He found Buck digging industriously at the foot of the pole up the scarecrow’s back.  “Stop that,” he said firmly.  Buck paid him no mind, and when he reached to pick him up, skittered around to dig on the other side of the pole.

 

“You decide which way you’re gonna go?”

 

This time, the voice was right over his head, and when he looked up, the scarecrow had one arm pointing in each direction, and a definite twinkle in his blue eyes.

 

Chris knew he should find this strange, but hell – he’d already seen two wicked witches and one good witch, so a talking scarecrow didn’t seem all that odd anymore.  “You often help travelers like this?” he asked instead.

 

“Only the ones that don’t seem to know where they’re goin’,” the scarecrow replied, grinning – though how he could either talk or grin with a mouth painted on a sack, Chris couldn’t even fathom.

 

“I know where I’m goin’,” Chris retorted, standing again.  “I’m just not too sure how to get there.”

 

The scarecrow considered him closely, painted eyes seeming to narrow.  “You get me down off this pole, I can help you… maybe take you where you wanna go.”

 

Chris opened his mouth to protest – how could a _scarecrow_ know where to go? – but then he shrugged.  _Probably uncomfortable as hell, hangin’ on a post like this_.  “All right.” 

 

The scarecrow was heavier than he appeared and it took more tugging and pushing and heaving than he’d expected, but then the scarecrow was off his pole, legs flopping all around has he tried to walk.  Then he touched the brim of his hat, even as he sagged against the fence circling the cornfield.  “Much obliged,” he said. 

 

“So, what do you know about where those roads lead?” Chris asked.

 

“Only what the crows bother to tell me when they come to the field,” the scarecrow replied.  “They mostly like to talk about the corn and how good it is to eat.  But it’s really all one road.  The left fork,” and he tilted his head toward the road, “goes around the forest, so it’s longer but safer.  The right fork,” and he gestured toward the right, “goes straight on to the Emerald City, but goin’ through the forest is dangerous.  There’s all kinds of wild animals.”

 

Chris paused in swinging back over the fence, then dropped down on the other side.  He had bullets, but they’d run out eventually, and some wild animals were harder to put down than others.  “What kind of wild animals?”

 

The scarecrow shrugged.  “The travelers that come out say that there’s lions in there.  Tigers.  Bears.”

 

He gave the scarecrow a skeptical look – bears he could believe, but lions and tigers?  Then he considered what he’d seen since arriving here.  _Could be there are lions and tigers… If so, it’s gonna be a hell of a trip goin’ that way._   “I want to get back home quick as I can,” he said.  “If that way’s faster, I’m willin’ to take the risk of wild animals.  Buck!” The dog had left off digging at the scarecrow’s pole and was now digging at a gopher hole, but looked up at the sound of his name.  “Get over here.  We’re goin’.”

 

“You live along this road, but you don’t know how to get home?”  The scarecrow sounded skeptical this time.

 

“No… gotta get the Wizard in the Emerald City to send me home.  If he can.  I said come on, Buck.”  The dog was giving the gopher hole a longing look.

 

“Where’s home that you gotta get the Wizard to _send_ you there?” the scarecrow asked, head cocked to one side.

 

Chris felt his lips twist in a tiny wry smile as Buck crawled back under the fence next to him.  “A long ways away from here, I guess.  Never seen a place like this before.”

 

The scarecrow looked at him, then away, down the right-hand path.  “You reckon the Wizard could help me, too?  See, my head… it’s just full of straw.  Makes it hard to… do some of the things men do.  I’d like to change that.”

 

He studied the scarecrow for a moment, wondering what a man of straw could possibly want from a wizard.  _Well, I guess it don’t matter none._   “You got a name?”

 

The scarecrow turned back to him, gave him an easy smile, apparently understanding his intention without any other words.  “The man who put me together didn’t give me a name, but… for some reason, I can’t stop thinkin’ that my name is Vin.”

 

“All right, Vin.” Chris jerked his head toward the right branch of the road.  “Let’s get goin’… we’re burnin’ daylight.”

 

Vin clambered over the fence, nearly falling on his face when his straw-filled legs wouldn’t support his landing.  “Ready when you are,” he said, smiling.

 

“You stick close, Buck,” Chris ordered.  “You’d be a nice meal for any lions roamin’ about.” Buck gave him a look that was almost human, one that said _I know animals better than_ you _do,_ and set off along the right-hand path.

 

The sun was sinking in the west when Chris felt the first pangs of hunger and he wished, not for the first time, for his horse and saddlebags.  He paused as they came upon a small cabin, no bigger than his own.  It was set in a small clearing, starting to become overgrown by the forest once more.  The cabin looked abandoned, and the door stood open.  _This is as good a place as any to spend the night,_ he thought, _and Jesus, my feet hurt._   “Vin,” he asked, taking a quick look into the empty cabin, “you got any idea what’s safe to eat in these parts? Anything the crows told you?”

 

Vin sniffed and glanced around, then pointed.  “They like the fruits from those trees over there.”

 

At the edge of the clearing, nearly hidden in the fringe of the forest, was a small stand of fruit trees, branches heavy with what looked like apples.  “Thanks,” he said, and strode across the clearing to pluck one from the nearest branch.

 

The branch reared back and slapped him hard across the hand, so that he dropped the apple.  “What the hell?”

 

“What?”

 

Slowly, Chris looked from the branch, still moving, to the red mark on the back of his hand, then over his shoulder at Vin… and remembered that no matter how familiar an apple tree was, he wasn’t home.  “I think the tree just hit me.”

 

“Well, of course I did.”  The rough voice pulled his attention back to the tree, and he saw what was clearly a scowling face in the gnarled bark.  “Humans!  Always coming up and ripping things off our branches… how’d you like it if I ripped something off of you?”

 

Someone threatening him with bodily harm always brought out the worst in him.  Chris grinned at the tree, and bent to pick up the apple he’d dropped.  “Well, I’ve already ripped this one off,” he said, and took a big bite.  “A little on the sour side,” he added, licking up the juice running over his lip, “but I reckon I should have expected that, considering the tree.”

 

“Why you!”  The tree made a groaning sound, like there was a high wind making it bend.  That woke up the other apple trees, and they started lobbing apples at him.  A few hit him before he backed up out of their effective range, stinging impacts that he knew would probably leave some colorful bruises later.

 

“Yeah,” Vin said with a grin when Chris had gotten behind the cottage again.  “That’s what the crows do, too.  Let me pick some up – gettin’ hit won’t hurt me.”

 

He opened his mouth to protest, then remembered that Vin was stuffed with straw.  “All right… I’ll grab the ones that rolled across the road.” 

 

Vin waved that he’d heard as he started picking up the apples closest to the house.  The trees got a few solid hits on him, but he just shrugged it off and kept on gathering the apples.  He took off his hat and started piling them in that to tote them back to the cottage.

 

Shielded by the house – and the fact that the trees did not have terribly good aim – Chris started picking up the apples that gone harmlessly past them.  The trees were tiring of trying to punish him; most of them had already stopped throwing their own fruits and had seemingly gone back to sleep.

 

He continued stuffing fruits into his pockets, bent over to search better in the shadows of the forest, when he bumped into something hard. With a muttered curse, he straightened.

 

It was a statue of a man, made of what looked like tin.  The tin statue had a wicked looking axe raised, as if in mid-swing to chop a log on the chopping block.  The tinsmith-turned-sculptor had done a remarkable job with the statue’s clothing; Chris could see the faint outlines of trim along the edges of what was intended to be a frock coat, and the folds of a cravat at its throat were impressive in their realism.

 

“Vin,” he called, and Vin looked out of the cabin door, his hat in his hands and full of apples.  Chris tilted his head toward the statue.  “Take a look at this.”

 

“Huh,” Vin said, eyeing the statue as he drew closer.  “Didn’t know they made men of tin.”

 

Chris blinked. “You mean it’s not just a statue?”

 

Then they both heard a muffled noise, something that sounded a little like someone trying to force open a window stuck shut.  They looked at each other, then all around when it came again.

 

“Sounds like it’s from the tin man.”  Vin inspected the statue more closely and nodded.  “Yep… looks like he’s all rusted from the rain.  Maybe he’s askin’ to be oiled?”

 

At that moment, Chris noticed that there was an oilcan, of all things, on a nearby stump, just out of reach.  He grabbed it and oiled the seam of the tin statue’s – the tin _man’s_ – mouth, then the joints where his lower jaw was attached to his face.  Carefully, he took hold of the tin man’s jaw and wiggled it a little, breaking the last of the rust that had sealed his mouth shut.

 

When Chris let go of him, he still moved his jaw from side to side as if to limber it further.  “Well, that’s much better.  But I was tryin’ to ask you gentlemen for the polish.”  He grinned, eyes twinkling.  “I’ve been standin’ here for so long, I’m sure I could do with a shine.  I certainly don’t look my best.”

 

“Polish?”  Chris glanced around, saw a rag and a jar of silver polish on the ground near the stump and picked them up.  “This it?”

 

“Yes!” the tin man agreed, and when he smiled, Chris caught a flash of gold.  “Now, if you gentlemen would be so kind…”

 

Chris didn’t even have to look at Vin to know what he was thinking.  “I don’t know… don’t seem that it’d be that smart to polish up a fella who can’t even move… and then we’d have to oil him and polish him _again_ afterward to clean up the oil drippings.”

 

Vin shook his head solemnly.  “Seems like twice the work, don’t it?”

 

The tin man’s eyes rolled from one of them to the other, since he couldn’t move his head.  “Now, gentlemen,” he started in a placating tone.

 

“And if we just left…” Chris put on his most infuriating grin.  “Well, I reckon he’d be standing there in the same spot for the next traveler, wouldn’t he?”

 

“Problem with that is that there aren’t a lot of travelers passin’ by.” Vin shrugged.  “Might be some time before someone else comes this far.”

 

“But if you let us oil you up now, you might be able to let down that axe,” Chris finished.  “Looks like it might be heavy.”

 

“You have no idea,” the tin man sighed.  “I’ve been holding it forever, it seems.  If you gentlemen will wield the oil can, I believe I’ll be able to handle the polish myself… except, of course, for my back.” He gave Chris a glance from the corner of his eye.  “Perhaps then I could prevail upon you…”

 

“All right… while we get you limber, you tell us what happened.”  Chris started oiling the tin man’s shoulder, working at it gently to free it from rust.  “You weren’t always made of tin, were you?”

 

“No, I wasn’t.  – Ow! Do be careful! – I gained entrance to the Wicked Witch of the East’s castle and engaged her in a simple game of cards.  She wagered – oh, heavens, that’s much better – an item that she was… reluctant to part with once I’d won.”

 

“Cards, huh?” Chris carefully applied oil to the tin man’s hip.  “You a gambler?”

 

The tin man flashed him another gold-tinted grin.  “I abhor gamblin’… and leave nothin’ to chance.”

 

“Took quite a gamble, playin’ cards with a witch,” Vin added, taking the oil can from Chris.

 

“Yes, well… Mother needed somethin’ the witch had, and sent me to win it from her.”  His grin disappeared briefly.  “And when I requested the item I’d won, the witch… cast a spell upon me, turning me to tin, as you see.  I was to meet Mother here, but apparently she was delayed.  While waiting, I was caught in the rain… and the rest is obvious.”

 

Chris glanced up from where he knelt, working on the tin man’s knee.  He wanted to ask what he wasn’t telling them… but bit the words back.  _Sometimes, a man’s got to keep his secrets,_ he thought.  Instead, he asked, “Better now? Can you move?”

 

The tin man took a few unsteady steps away, joints clanking as he moved.  “I could do with a bit more oil on my hands,” he commented, sounding… put out. “I won’t be able to deal the cards like this.”

 

Rolling his eyes, Chris pushed himself to his feet.  “All right, give me the oilcan.”  He took hold of one of the tin man’s hands and started dabbing oil on the tiny articulations of his fingers.  “How’s that?”

 

“Very good, thank you.” The tin man flexed his hand, then smiled at him again, and he saw that the flash of gold was actually a gold tooth.  “Perhaps the other as well?”  he asked, lifting his other hand.  Chris obliged him, carefully holding his hand level so the oil would flow where it was supposed to.

 

“Almost like having my old dexterity back,” the tin man murmured when Chris was done.  He stared down at his hands, at the rivets and the joints, all slick with oil.  When he moved them, they didn’t even squeak in protest.  “The assistance you have rendered is invaluable,” he added more loudly.  “Misters…?”

 

“Chris Larabee,” he replied, and had to tear his eyes away from the way the tin man flexed his fingers.

 

“My name is Ezra Standish,” the tin man offered with another of those grins that flashed his golden tooth.  “And you, sir?” He turned to Vin.

 

“Vin,” the scarecrow replied.  “An’ if I got a last name, I reckon it’s Tanner, since that’s the name of the fella who put me together.”

 

Ezra opened his mouth to say something, but Chris cut him off.  “Gettin’ dark fast.  We should go inside before the dew falls and we gotta oil you up again.”  Without waiting for Ezra’s response, he strode back across the road and into the cottage.

 

It was very much like his own cabin, small and snug, with a table and a couple of chairs, a stove and a bed and not much else.  He started setting the apples he’d picked up onto the table, emptying his pockets.  Buck had already climbed up on the bed – when, Chris had no idea, but he hadn’t seen the dog at all while he and Vin were dealing with the trees – and watched him, nose on his front paws.  He whined softly, the sound nearly lost in the rustle of straw and clank of metal that heralded Vin and Ezra’s entrance.

 

“Sorry, Buck,” Chris said, settling into one of the chairs.  “Maybe we can catch a rabbit or somethin’ for you tomorrow, but tonight, there’s only apples.”  He sliced one up with his knife and offered the dog a piece.  Buck took it, but he didn’t look happy about it.

 

“I miss eating,” Ezra sighed.  “I’d gladly consume even those sour-lookin’ apples, just to taste somethin’ again.  Perhaps the Witch could be convinced to lift the curse.”

 

Chris frowned at him around a bit of apple.  “I think that’d be pretty difficult, considerin’ she’s dead.”

 

“Dead?” For a moment, Ezra looked hopeful.  “Since when?”

 

“Earlier today… my house landed on her.”

 

Ezra’s face fell, and he stared down at his hands.  “But the spell she laid on me is still in effect.”

 

Vin leaned against the cabin wall and crossed his arms with a rustle.  “Sounds like the spell she set on you wasn’t meant to break when she died.”  He tilted his head toward Chris.  “Maybe the Wizard could help him, too.”

 

“Wizard?” Ezra glanced between them.  “The only wizard I’ve heard of is the one in the Emerald City.   Mother has met him, of course.  Even _he_ claims he’s a fraud.”

 

“A fraud?” Vin looked at Chris as well, and there was a sudden tension running through him.

 

“Yeah, the Witch of the North told me that, too,” Chris admitted, cutting another bite of apple.  “Also said that this wizard was the best shot of me gettin’ back home.  Figure I’ll hold judgment until I talk to him.”

 

With a nod, Vin relaxed again.

 

Ezra was left looking between them again, and Chris was sure that if his tin features were capable of showing more confusion, they would.  But he didn’t ask if Chris was sure if the Wizard could help, which was just as well, because Chris couldn’t answer that with any certainty anyway.

 

Instead, Ezra began to talk, which, Chris suspected, was what he did best.  He told them stories while Chris ate and fed Buck bits of apple, and was still speaking even after Chris had finished and full dark had fallen. 

 

He was a good judge of his audience, too; Buck was curled up on the bed, snoring more loudly than a dog his size had any right when Ezra stopped with his story. “I believe that it’s time to go to bed, given that the dog is already asleep.”

 

Chris nodded.  “Yeah, it is.  Been a bitch of a day.” He stood and stretched, then shrugged out of his coat and draped it over the back of the chair. 

 

Before he got any further, though, Ezra asked, “And what about the sleeping arrangements?  There’s only one bed, after all…”

 

He looked up, startled by the question. “You tellin’ me you want the bed?”  He glanced at Vin, eyebrows raised.

 

Vin shrugged back.  “I don’t need to sleep, so I don’t need the bed.”

 

Chris frowned at Ezra.  “What about you?  Reckon we can trade off if you need.”

 

Ezra hesitated, choosing his words carefully.  “I suppose I don’t, strictly speaking, _require_ sleep under this curse, but…”

 

 _But you want to pretend_ , Chris finished silently.  He nodded, then said, “But I _do_ need sleep.  And even though that bed don’t look too comfortable, right now, I’m tired enough that it could be the lumpiest tick you could imagine and I’d still be asleep in a minute.  Once you’re human again,” he added, his tone low, “then we can discuss who gets the bed.”

 

And just for a second, he saw Ezra smile – a _real_ one, not like the ones he’d been showing off while telling his story; one that was pleased and surprised and just a little bit shy.  _Like maybe he hasn’t had many people believe in him_ , Chris thought, a little surprised.  Then Ezra nodded, agreeing to his words.

 

After shucking off his boots, Chris rolled himself into the bed – which was just as uncomfortable as it looked – and spent the few minutes before sleep claimed him wondering just how he was going to get back home.

 

***

Habit was hard to break, and despite the unaccustomed walking the day before, Chris still woke when the sun started to creep over the horizon.  In the faint early morning light, he could see Vin leaning against the wall, staring out the window.  Ezra was slumped over the table, head resting on folded arms, but he gleamed in the light, and Chris knew he was still made of tin.

 

Before he sat up, Vin turned around and gave him a smile that was little more than a crinkling of his eyes.  “Mornin’.”

 

“Mornin’,” he replied, and levered himself up, groaning as new aches and pains made themselves known.  Buck opened one eye as he jostled the mattress, then closed it again, curling his tail over his nose.   Chris ran a hand over the dog’s head, then jerked his chin toward Ezra.  “He sleepin’?”

 

“No, I’m not,” Ezra replied, voice muffled into his arms, “much as I’d like to be.” He lifted his head.  “I trust you enjoyed your slumber.”

 

“You’re lucky as hell you didn’t need to sleep on this damned bed.”  Chris pushed to his feet and stretched, taking a few steps to work the stiffness from his muscles.  “C’mon, Buck.  Time to get up.”

 

Reluctantly, Buck got to his feet and stretched and shook himself, then leapt to the floor.  He looked up at Chris expectantly.

 

“Yeah, we’ll see if we can get you a rabbit or somethin’,” Chris told him.  “Just more apples for right now.”

 

Buck heaved a doggy sigh, then pawed at the door.  Vin obliged by opening it, and the dog skinned out. Vin stood in the doorway watching.   “Maybe he’ll find somethin’ on his own.”

 

“S’pose he might,” Chris said.  Reluctantly, he picked up one of the apples that was left over from the night before and began to slice it.

 

Before too long – Ezra didn’t have time to gather himself to spin another story – Vin stepped back to let Buck inside again.  The dog shook himself and sat down by Chris’s feet.

 

Chris took the last bite of his apple and stuffed a couple more into his coat pockets.  _Wish there was some coffee,_ he thought wistfully, then pushed it aside.  There probably wasn’t anything like coffee here, any more than there were horses to ride.  “Ready if you boys are.”

 

“I am certainly _not_ ready to go traipsing off into the forest,” Ezra said, pushing himself to his feet.  “But it seems there’s no other way to get myself back to normal.”

 

“Ya don’t have to go,” Vin answered, voice sharp.  “Long as you stay out of the rain, you’d be fine here waitin’ for your ma.”

 

Ezra made a rattling noise as he shuddered.  “Truly, I’ve no wish to see Mother until I’m myself again.”

 

“Well, then, let’s get goin’.”  Chris strode toward the door, Buck trotting at his heels.  _Just want to get on to see this Wizard,_ he thought, squinting a little at the bright morning sun, _see if he can send me back home like Nathan said._   Behind him, he heard the distinctive rustle of straw and clattering that defined Vin’s and Ezra’s movements, and relaxed slightly.

 

The Yellow Brick Road snaked on through the forest, pocked here and there with holes from broken – or missing – bricks.  Above their heads, the branches of the trees reached out to each other, so that occasionally, the road was shaded, and the sun dappled the leaves with gold.

 

Gradually, though, the branches formed a canopy over them, so that they could barely see the sun at all.  The air turned cool, filled with the scent of trees and underbrush and leaves rotting into the ground.

 

Ezra, made of tin and not having much need to breathe, told stories of places he’d been – the Emerald City of the Wizard, the grim castle of the Wicked Witch of the East, the light and airy palace of the Witch of the North.  Chris snorted when he described the Witch of the North as a beautiful lady with red-blond hair, wearing a delicately constructed crown.  _Guess he ain’t ever really been there,_ he thought, though he said nothing, not even when Ezra shot him a quelling glance.  _Still a good story, though._

 

As morning wore into afternoon, the forest grew progressively darker and more forbidding.  They hadn’t encountered any more of those foul-tempered fruit trees, and Chris couldn’t count that as anything but a blessing; he was getting damned sick of apples.

 

Buck was keeping closer, too, not wandering into the underbrush by the sides of the road searching for chipmunks or whatever other small critters might lurk there.  In fact, he was right tight to Chris’s heels most of the time, so that if he stopped walking, the dog was like to run into his legs.

 

“Reckon those lions you were talkin’ about are out there?” he asked Vin, grinning.

 

But Vin didn’t grin back.  “Reckon so,” was all he said.

 

 _Huh,_ Chris thought, sobering a little.  _I thought there might be bears, but I didn’t think he was really serious about those lions and tigers…_

 

But he had no chance to think about that any further.  From the trees to their left, there came a noise, something loud and animal-like.  Before he even knew what he was doing, Chris had ducked behind a tree on the opposite side of the road, cursing that it didn’t offer any amount of protection at all.  Buck huddled at his feet.

 

Dimly, Chris was aware of Vin and Ezra also trying to hide in the underbrush – Vin crouched behind a bush beside him, Ezra trying to hide behind another tree.

 

Another noise – something he definitely recognized as a snarl – and Chris dared to peer around the tree, gun in his hand.

 

There was a lion across the road, pacing back and forth in an area where there wasn’t any undergrowth.  The dirt was visible, and Chris realized that the lion has used this particular ambush spot in the past – often enough to have worn away whatever growth there had been.

 

He glanced at Vin and managed to catch his eye, but Vin just arched an eyebrow as if to say, _Believe me now?_   Ezra was too far away, and was watching the lion too closely for Chris to get his attention.

 

 _Well, hell,_ he thought, _what are we gonna do now?_   He nudged Buck with the toe of his boot, to reassure both himself and the dog that they were both still alive.  _Ezra’s probably still thinkin’ he’s alive and could get eaten, and Vin’s… well, too floppy…_

 

The lion roared fiercely, but on a second look, Chris noticed that he didn’t have a full mane, so he wasn’t very old.  Or very _big_ ; compared to the pictures of lions that Chris had seen in books, this lion was kind of on the small side.  And that meant… _Why, he isn’t hardly more than a cub,_ he thought indignantly.

 

With that in mind, he stepped out from behind the tree, gun pointing toward the lion.

 

“Chris!” Vin hissed. “What are you doin’?”

 

He didn’t reply, just fired a shot into the dirt, barely missing the lion’s front paws.

 

The lion stopped short, staring at the torn up ground, then at Chris.  “Hey, what’s that?” he asked.  “Is that a weapon?” He reared up on his hind legs, as if he were as comfortable standing upright as a man.  “Are you tryin’ to kill me?”

 

“You’re tryin’ to kill us!” Chris retorted, cocking his gun again.  “I figure it’s only fair if we try to kill you back.”

 

“Well, I’m not gonna run away, just because you’ve got that… bang thing.” The lion crossed his front legs – arms? – across his chest.  “Lions are brave.  We don’t run away.”

 

“Runnin’ away don’t mean you’re not brave,” Chris said.  He lowered the gun slightly, knowing he could bring it up again in an instant.  “Sometimes it’s the only way you can survive.”

 

The lion looked doubtful.  “It doesn’t seem to me that surviving means a lot if everyone thinks you’re a coward for running away.”

 

“Only if you’re gonna live your life depending on what everyone else thinks,” Chris replied.  “If you’re gonna live your life by what you _know_ … who cares what other people think?”

 

“Reckon you’re smart enough to figger it out,” Vin added, coming up behind Chris with that rustle of straw that he already found… not comforting, but expected.

 

The lion sat down, curling his tail around his hind legs just the way a housecat would… except he played with the tuft at the end.  His brow creased in a thoughtful frown, he asked, “So all those people that I chased when they ran away… they were just tryin’ to survive?”

 

“Yeah, I reckon so, if they thought you were gonna eat ‘em.”

 

Just then, Buck leapt over the log behind which he and Chris had been hiding, and scampered right up to the lion, sniffing at his tawny fur.

 

“You keep doin’ that, Buck,” Chris growled, “and you’re gonna get eaten… or changed into a lizard or somethin’.” He edged closer to the lion, angling for a way to grab Buck without getting too close.  But Buck seemed to know – and like – the game, and darted here and there around the lion, whose whiskers trembled with laughter.

 

“Fine,” Chris huffed.  “You keep right on doin’ what you’re doin’.  Don’t come cryin’ to me when you get eaten.”

 

“Oh, I wouldn’t eat him,” the lion said, his tone earnest.  “He’s not much more than a mouthful, and I’d choke on his tiny little bones besides.”

 

As if he understood the lion’s words – and Chris wouldn’t have taken the bet that he didn’t – Buck gave them both the most reproachful look a dog could give before wriggling his way into the undergrowth beside the road and disappearing.

 

“Oh, no.”  The lion stood up again on his hind legs, but kept hold of his tail, running the tuft through his paws over and over.  “I didn’t mean… I mean, he _is_ kinda small, but… I really wouldn’t eat him, you know.”

 

“Yeah, I know,” Chris said, his lips curled in a tiny smile.  “He’ll be back once we start movin’ again.  He won’t want to get left behind. Ezra, you comin’ out any time soon?” he called over his shoulder, not having heard the clank of Ezra’s steps.

 

Ezra leaned out from behind his tree.  “I’m sorry, are we now _trusting_ the beast who would have eaten us?”

 

The lion looked a bit ashamed.  “I wouldn’t have eaten _you_ , Mister,” he said.

 

“I sincerely hope not,” Ezra replied, and at last stepped out from his hiding place.

 

“I’d have broken all my teeth,” the lion continued blithely.  Chris turned aside, hand over his mouth to hide his smirk.  Vin didn’t bother.

 

Despite being made of tin, Ezra bristled, clearly having expected some other reason.  “I see.”  He turned to Chris and made a valiant effort to ignore Vin.  “Are we ready to proceed?”

 

“Thought you weren’t prepared to travel,” Vin replied, grinning.

 

“I am better prepared for travel than I am to being slaughtered and eaten,” Ezra shot back.

 

“Where are you guys goin’?” the lion asked.  His brown eyes were wide, and if a lion could be said to have an expression, Chris would have said he looked _eager_.  “Can I come too?  It’s kinda boring here in the forest.  There aren’t a lot of travelers to e—” He cut himself off, then, looking more than a little ashamed, he finished, “To entertain myself with.”

 

Chris gave the young lion a stern look, then huffed a little when he ducked his head contritely.  “We’re goin’ to the Emerald City,” he said, “to see the Wizard.  Hopin’ that maybe he’ll be able to help me get home.  I got dropped here by a twister,” he added, seeing the lion open his mouth to ask why.

 

“Oh,” the lion said, blinking.  “That sounds like somethin’ a Wizard could do.  What about you guys?” he asked, turning to Ezra and Vin.

 

Ezra kept silent, staring at the lion in mistrust, but Vin shrugged in that easy way he had.  “I don’t want to just have straw in my head – I want to be able to use it like a regular man.”

 

“Can I come too?” the lion asked, and if Chris had thought he’d seemed eager before, that was nothing compared to this.  “I’d help keep other animals away, and I could take that little black critter huntin’ with me, ‘cause he looks like he wants some meat, and I wouldn’t be hardly no trouble at all, really!”  He looked from Chris to Vin to Ezra and back to Chris again, eyes shining.  He tugged at his tail a little.

 

Chris heard Ezra take in a breath – _probably to say no_ , he thought wryly – and beat him to the punch.  “What should we call you, kid?”

 

Ezra’s put-upon sigh was nearly drowned out by the lion’s growl of happiness.  “My mother called me JD.  Oh, this is so exciting!  I’ll get to see a Wizard!” He pranced in place, like a tawny horse might.  “Can we go? Now?”

 

Chris smiled and shook his head at JD’s enthusiasm.  “I reckon we should.  Buck!” He whistled, and after a moment, the dog came out of the underbrush, shook off some of the dirt that he’d accumulated, then looked up at Chris, tail wagging slightly.  Apparently all was forgiven.

 

“Guess we’re all here,” Chris said, and smiled.  “Time to go.”  He waited until they had all gathered around him before setting off.  It felt… good.

 

***

The green glow they’d seen on the horizon had grown larger and larger until it finally resolved into the Emerald City.  The road they’d been following was now barred by gates more than twice as tall as Chris and made of metal bars and plates.

 

“How do we get in?” JD asked.  He craned his head back to look up at the gateposts.  “It’s awfully tall.”

 

Chris shrugged.  “Knock, I guess.”  He thumped on the gate with his fist.

 

After only a moment, a door opened in the gate; it was small, and just above head height, barely wide enough for the face that appeared.  “Who’s knockin’?” the man demanded.  He wore a green hat and coat, and had heavy muttonchops along his cheeks.

 

“That’d be us,” Chris answered.  “We’d like to see the Wizard, if he’s receivin’ visitors.”

 

“The Wizard?” the man said, and his pelt of whiskers quivered with indignation.  “The Wizard? He doesn’t want to see you – go away at once!”  He slammed the little look-out door as hard as he could.

 

For a moment, the four of them stood silent, staring at each other. JD’s mouth was agape at the rudeness, while Vin was tight-lipped with anger.

 

Ezra stepped back, and it seemed to Chris that he was studying the gate, squinting a little as he eyed it up and down.  “Mister Tanner,” he said, loudly enough that they all jumped at the sound.  “Falling from a height of, say, twelve feet or more wouldn’t hurt you, would it?”

 

Vin frowned, then nodded.  “I guess not.  Might be straw fallin’ out from some busted seams, but I wouldn’t be _hurt_.  Why?”  Then, almost before the word was out of his mouth, Chris saw the light of understanding dawn in Vin’s face.  He and Vin shared a wicked grin, then turned back to Ezra.  “Might be best if I stood on someone’s shoulders and heaved myself over,” he said, his voice pitched to carry.

 

Chris heard the squeak of the look-out door opening, and glanced over in time to see the man with muttonchops staring at them, his mouth open.

 

“And once on the other side,” Ezra went on, “you would be easily able to unbar the gate.”

 

“Or force someone else to do it,” Vin agreed.  “Go on over by the wall, Ezra, let me…”

 

“Hold it!” The man stuck a hand out through the door and waved it frantically, trying to get their attention.   “What do you think you’re doing?”

 

Chris grinned at him slowly, and watched him swallow.  “We’re aimin’ to get inside those gates, maybe see the town.” He waited a beat, watching the man’s reactions, then, when it looked like the officious prat was about to sigh in relief, he finished, “Go see the Wizard.”

 

That firmed the man up a little, and he glared at them from his perch.  “The Wizard don’t see nobody!”

 

“Friend,” Vin said, “we’re gonna get in to see the Wizard one way or the other.  You take a moment and think about that.”

 

The man blanched a little, then retreated and slammed the little door shut again.  However, before they could return to their ruse, a cunningly hidden door opened in the gates.  It was at ground level and human sized.  Chris looked at the others, shrugged and stepped through.

 

When they were all inside, the man with the muttonchops closed the door again.  He eyed them testily, then snapped, “Follow me,” and marched off.  They hustled close behind him, through another gate, smaller but much more ornate.  This one opened into a city, and Chris could see in one glance how the Emerald City got its name.

 

Everything was green.  The cobbles of the street were of some green stone, the windows were made of some kind of green glass, and every person they passed wore green from head to toe.  _Must be a bitch to dye leather that color,_ Chris thought, eyeing the grass-green boots of a passer-by.

 

“I must admit, I had forgotten just how…” Ezra gestured aimlessly with one hand.

 

“Green?” Chris suggested, smirking.

 

“ _Dull_ it was here,” he finished instead.  Chris could have sworn his tin features scrunched up in distaste.  “Yes, indeed, too much of everything the same.”

 

The man with the muttonchops glared back at them over his shoulder, and Chris turned another grin on him.

 

“Huh,” Vin said.  His gaze darted everywhere.  “’Least they had other colors in the land of the Nee.  All this one color ain’t natural.”

 

“Kinda reminds me of the forest,” JD said, his tone thoughtful.  He, too, glanced all around, taking in all the sights.   Chris noticed that people tended to skitter away if JD looked at them too long.  “A little bit, anyway.”

 

It was only a short walk through the city to another gate, this one fronting a building with tall spires – a castle of some kind, Chris suspected.  “Wait here,” their grumpy guide ordered, then pulled open half the gate and entered the castle.

 

Several minutes passed before the man returned, and his lips were so pursed that he looked like he’d had to suck on a lemon.  “The Wizard will see you,” he bit out.

 

“You don’t say,” Ezra murmured, and Chris had to fight hard to hold back his laugh so the man with the muttonchops wouldn’t hear.

 

They followed him down a long corridor to a pair of doors that were on the same scale as the gate into the city.  One of them was open slightly, and the guide gestured them roughly toward the opening before huffing back down the corridor.

 

Feeling the others’ eyes on him, Chris pulled the door open further and stepped through.

 

The first thing that he noticed was how bare the chamber was.  There was still some decoration – the wall hangings at the rear of the chamber, the curtains on the windows, all green – but here it didn’t overwhelm as it had outside.  The lack of decoration made this seem an almost peaceful place.

 

The Wizard, when Chris finally noticed him, seemed to be more a part of the room than an actual person.  Calm poured off him in waves, strangely at odds with his appearance.  The Wizard was a tall, powerfully-built man with a heavy jaw, older than all of them, but not _aged_ , and certainly not infirm.  Chris hadn’t been expecting anyone like that.  If he’d let himself think about it at all beyond getting home, he would have probably been expecting a man even older than this Wizard, but small, stooped over, with nothing more than a fringe of white hair around his head and wearing spectacles besides.

 

He’d also have expected some kind of… magical laboratory or something, with shelves of books lining every wall, or, given the regard in which the people of this strange land held him, perhaps a throne, something to show off his power.  Instead, the Wizard received them in this nearly empty chamber, where he sat on a brilliantly red cushion on the floor, legs crossed, hands resting on his knees, eyes closed.  He wasn’t wearing green.  Indeed, his clothes looked… _normal_ , worn and comfortable.

 

Chris could feel the others’ gazes on him again, like they were expecting him to do something, so he shrugged and stepped forward.  “You the Wizard?”

 

The Wizard opened one eye and looked him over.  “That’s what people call me,” he replied, his voice deep and resonant.  He closed that eye again, humming softly, a noise that was steady in pitch but couldn’t be called a tune.  “I wouldn’t say they’re right, though,” he added unexpectedly.

 

“Well, if you’re not a Wizard,” Ezra said, stepping forward with a clank, “what are you?”

 

The Wizard opened both eyes this time and considered them.  “I reckon I’d call myself a seeker of truth.  A philosopher.  Maybe even a teacher.”  He relaxed, resting his elbows on his knees.  “But once people get an idea of you in their head, it’s hard to get them to change it.”

 

“I guess that’s the truth,” Vin said.  He studied the Wizard – or maybe he wasn’t really a Wizard, Chris decided, just like he said – before turning to Chris.  “S’pose there ain’t much he can do for me after all… nor maybe Ezra, either.”

 

“What makes you say that?” the Wizard asked.  He didn’t sound angry, just curious.

 

Vin shrugged, a floppy rustle of straw.  “If you ain’t a wizard, you can’t turn Ezra back human, so he’s stuck bein’ tin—”

 

“Thank you _so_ much for that reminder, Mister Tanner,” Ezra interrupted, his tone acid.

 

“—And you can’t do nothin’ for makin’ my head be filled with anythin’ other than straw.”  Vin said that evenly enough, but Chris could see the way his mouth turned down, as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

 

The Wizard hummed again, but this was a short, thoughtful noise.  “I don’t have real magical powers, that’s true, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t do anything to help you.”

 

Vin’s expression changed slightly; Chris thought it became more hopeful.  “Like what?”

 

When the Wizard pushed himself to his feet, he was even taller than Chris had expected.  “The man who made you, put you in his field… I reckon he didn’t teach you anything except how to scare crows.”

 

“What else would he teach me?”

 

The Wizard looked at him, blue eyes piercing but not pitying.  “How to read, or write, or cipher… If you want to learn, I can teach you that.”

 

Vin surveyed the Wizard again, and relaxed slightly; Chris only saw it because he was paying attention.  To anyone else, it would have been just a settling of his straw.  “Yeah, I reckon I do.”

 

“That’s all very well for you, Mister Tanner,” Ezra cut in, and his bitterness was almost palpable in the air.  “But book learnin’ can’t cure all ills.”

 

“No,” the Wizard replied, his voice almost gentle.  “It can’t, and that’s the truth.  Whatever curse is on you, you have to work to undo it on your own. But you already knew that.”

 

Chris shot Ezra a narrow look as Ezra huffed and turned away, clearly sulking.  _Should have known he wasn’t tellin’ us everything,_ he thought, and couldn’t stop the feeling that Ezra had let him down somehow.

 

Then he considered the way Ezra had spoken that first night, and how he’d looked when Chris had woken up after that damn field of flowers, and decided that maybe Ezra had told them – had told _him_ – what he had been _able_ to tell.

 

His attention was drawn back as the Wizard nodded at JD.  “What about you, son?”

 

“Me?” JD gathered his tail in both front paws nervously.  “Oh, I didn’t come to ask for anything.  I just wanted to… to see more than just the forest where I was born.”  He tugged on his tail – harder than he usually did, if his wince was anything to go by – then released it.  “Don’t guess I need anything… but I might need to get rid of something.”

 

“Really?” The Wizard’s eyebrows arched upward, making his brow wrinkle.  “Like what?”

 

“My mother always said I was too brave.”  The words poured out of JD like a river in flood, unexpected and strong.  “She said that I was gonna get hurt someday if I didn’t stop bein’ brave and… and reckless.  The men of the Nee would come and… and kill us all, and it would be because of me.  I left our home on the other side of the forest but I couldn’t stop e—entertaining myself with the people who travelled on the Yellow Brick Road.  It was even more fun because no one was getting after me, and I wasn’t putting anyone else I knew in danger.  But I was awfully lonely.  So I guess I need to get rid of some bravery so I can go home and not chase people anymore...” He swallowed.  “Can… can you do that?”

 

“Oh, son.” His eyes bright, the Wizard rested his hand on JD’s shoulder, fingers digging into the fur there.  “The only thing that can temper bravery like that is wisdom.  And only time can take care of that.”

 

JD’s face fell. “So… I haveta stay away from home until I get wise?” he asked, and the air of dejection that hung over him made Chris’s chest ache.

 

The Wizard shook his head.  “No, I’m not sayin’ that at all.  You want to get home badly enough, you’ll find a way.  But think about this: why did you want to chase those people and… _entertain_ yourself with them?”

 

“’Cause it was fun,” JD replied promptly, then added more thoughtfully, “and excitin’.”

 

Slowly, the Wizard nodded.  “Not because you were… hungry or anything?”

 

The kid squirmed a little.  “Well… no.  If I’m hungry, I’d much rather eat the deer in the forest.  They… uh… taste better.”

 

“And why did you decide to leave the forest, travel with these men?”

 

“Because…” He paused, then went on slowly, “they said they were comin’ here to see a wizard, and that sounded…”

 

“Exciting?” the Wizard asked, eyebrows raised, when he trailed off.

 

“Yeah,” JD said, frowning intently.

 

“Better than _entertaining_ yourself with travelers?”

 

The lion was silent for a long moment.  “Yeah,” he repeated, the word almost inaudible.

 

The Wizard hummed, a meditative little noise, but didn’t seem at all surprised.  “Good.  Well,” he said, turning to Chris. “You’re the only one who hasn’t asked for something, so I guess it’s a doozy.”

 

“Guess you’re right.”  For what felt like the hundredth time, Chris told the story of how he’d been dropped in the land of the Nee, and how he’d come to undertake this journey… including the confusing moment when he’d woken shivering under a light blanket of snow, surrounded by dying red flowers.  “So, I was hoping that you might know of some way to get me back home.  I don’t belong in this world, nice as it is.”

 

He didn’t have to turn around to know that the huff behind him was Ezra.

 

“Well, now.” The Wizard looked thoughtful.  “I suppose I do know a way at that.  I came here in a balloon – got blown off course by the wind and flew for hours and hours before I saw this place.  When I landed, the people were friendly enough I decided to stay.  Got homesick after a while, though, decided to fly home.  The Wicked Witch of the West saw my balloon in the sky and shot it down with one of her fireballs.”  He flashed them a toothy grin.  “Well, I should say she _tried_ , but missed.  I was lucky there was a sudden gust of wind.  I could hear her cursing from the basket of my balloon.

 

“So, to make sure that such a mishap doesn’t happen again, I’d really like for you – all of you – to neutralize the Wicked Witch of the West.”

 

JD’s eyes were wide.  “How are we gonna do _that?_ ” he blurted.

 

The Wizard shrugged.  “I’d say that’s up to you.”

 

Ezra studied his tin hands.  “And how will you know we’ve done it?   If we were so inclined, we could just tell you we’d… taken care of her when we hadn’t.”

 

Scowling, Chris kicked him in the ankle, but it didn’t do anything more than just make a noise and jam his toes. Ezra didn’t even flinch.

 

“If you don’t, it’s your neck… well, Chris’s neck, anyway.” The Wizard looked at Ezra with knowing eyes.  “I reckon he’d rather not have it broken.  I can tell you I’d prefer not to fall from such a height myself.”  He considered for a moment, tapping his chin.  “How about you bring back her broomstick?  Neither of them wicked witches much like being without their broomsticks.  If you bring that back here, I’ll know for sure that you’ve done your part.  Meantime, I’ll see about getting my balloon ready.”  He nodded and strode toward the back of the chamber, twitching aside one of the sheer green drapes to reveal a door.  He stepped through it and was gone, leaving them staring after him.

 

“Well,” Vin said after a moment.  “Guess that’s that.”

 

“Yeah,” JD said, looking down at his tail, which he’d pulled into his front paws again.  “But maybe stayin’ won’t be too bad…”

 

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Vin shot JD a confused glance.

 

“Well, of _course_ we’re not goin’ to go after the Wicked Witch of the West,” Ezra said.  Then he looked at Chris, and rolled his eyes over a sigh.  “What am I sayin’… of course we _are_.”

 

“We are?” JD brightened considerably.  “When? Now?”

 

“I guess we could sleep tonight here and start out in the morning,” Chris replied drily.  “I imagine a place the size of this one, they’ve got some extra rooms for us to sleep in.”

 

“Oh, by the way…” The Wizard stuck his head back into the room, and his deep voice gave Chris a start.  Judging from the way the others jumped, they were surprised as well.  “You can call me Josiah.  It’ll be a nice change.  And go find that fellow who looked like he’d been sucking on lemons and have him show you somewhere to eat and sleep.”  He ducked out again, the drape swishing into stillness.

 

After a moment of silence, Vin chuckled.  “Guess there’s your answer.”

 

“Guess so.”  Chris pivoted and headed for the door, still open behind them.  “C’mon.”

 

***

In all, it was two days before they departed the Emerald City, opposite the gate they’d entered.  Chris had thought the gate by which they’d gone into the Emerald City was excessively fortified; that was nothing compared to the gate on the western side of the city.

 

Apparently everyone thought the Wicked Witch of the West was much more dangerous than her sister.

 

Part of the delay had, in fact, been due the Wicked Witch of the West.  She’d circled above the city on her broom, a blot on the bright blue sky.  Then some kind of smoke had exploded from the back of her broom to trail after her, and she’d written a message in the sky.

 

 _Surrender Chris_ , it had said, and sent everyone into a panic.  Vin, Ezra and JD had looked at him with wide eyes, while the Wizard – Josiah – had stroked his chin consideringly.

 

Chris had felt an icy cold shiver run down his back.  _How did she know my name?_ he asked himself, unable to look away from the dark letters in the sky.  _I didn’t tell her, and Nathan didn’t…_

 

The man with the muttonchops was tasked with helping them prepare for their journey to the Wicked Witch’s castle, and Chris started riding him even harder.  Their supplies – such as they were – were ready within an hour, much to Ezra’s loudly expressed dismay.

 

The road from the Emerald City to the Wicked Witch’s castle wasn’t in nearly as good repair as the one they’d already traveled, and it certainly wasn’t paved with yellow brick.  Unsurprisingly, not many people wanted to go west.

 

As they made their way west, Chris found himself thinking about the Wicked Witch of the West.  The more he thought about that moment in the land of the Nee, the more the Witch reminded him of someone he’d known years ago – a girl by the name of Ella Gaines.  But the Ella he remembered hadn’t been a screeching harpy of a witch; she had just been a girl… demanding, _willing_ , happy to incite him to violence on her behalf.  And what did it say that he’d been willing to be incited?  He couldn’t even count the number of brawls he’d been in on Ella’s behalf.  Hell, those fights were where most of the scars on his knuckles had come from.

 

He’d been young then, and wild, and Ella had called to something in him that craved excitement.  Even with the way things had ended between them, he still had a soft spot for her.

 

But now, all of that was at odds with the Wicked Witch.  _It isn’t Ella,_ he told himself, but somehow, the words didn’t quite ring true.

 

They made good time each day, but it still took longer than he liked to get to the grim forest where the Wicked Witch had her castle.  The road wound through an awful lot of open country, without even a farmhouse or barn for shelter.  Given that the Witch had already demanded his surrender, Chris would have been a whole lot more comfortable if they’d had places to hide, if necessary.

 

 _Wouldn’t JD balk at that?_ he thought, and ducked his head to keep the others from seeing his smile.

 

But the Witch didn’t come after them as he’d feared, and within a few days, they were at the edge of the forest.  _At least here,_ Chris thought, relaxing a little, _she can’t get at us without makin’ lots of noise._

 

During the nights on the trail – or on the road, rather – he had tried to make sure that Ezra didn’t seize up from the dew by asking him to keep watch with Vin.  Vin kept the oilcan handy, just in case, but also cajoled Ezra into walking around.  The more he moved, Chris figured, the less likely it was his joints would rust.

 

He tried, but Ezra seemed to delight in thwarting him; every morning, Ezra’s joints had rusted solid.  Chris scolded him as he oiled him back into mobility, and Ezra bitched about the dew and the lack of a feather bed and any other thing that crossed his mind.  Vin watched them both, laughter in his eyes.

 

It only occurred to him after the third morning that he oiled Ezra’s jaw first of all.  _Well, hell,_ he thought, surprised.  _No wonder Vin’s laughin’._

 

He was used to wanting someone, the fire low in his belly, the enjoyable ache of longing.  He’d even felt it a time or two for other fellows, when they were working together riding a herd or busting broncs.  There weren’t always a lot of women, and he’d traded that favor with other men from time to time, just to feel the touch of another’s hand.  But it was always easy to walk away, especially when they came around a place with women.

 

 _I suppose I’m not really surprised,_ he thought wryly.  _Just that it seems to crop up at the damnedest times…_ _And I always seem to want the wrong people, too._

 

Even with Ella, it hadn’t gone much beyond wanting.  They’d been full of desire for each other, but he’d never felt the urge to settle down with her.  _Don’t reckon she wanted to settle down with me either,_ he thought, keeping one eye on Buck, nosing at the edge of the road, and one eye out for the holes in the road, some of them deep enough to turn an ankle in.  _She enjoyed what we did, but there wasn’t more to it than that._

 

Thinking about Ella wasn’t much better than thinking about the Wicked Witch of the West; it just made him want to get home even more, maybe look her up.  Maybe she was married now.  _Wouldn’t that be something?_ he asked himself, trying to imagine her as some staid wife and failing.

 

But even if he did get back home, hell if he knew how or where to find her.  They hadn’t parted on the best of terms; he’d gotten tired of living on the knife edge, wondering when he would tip over into the flames below, so he’d packed his things and left.  Ella’s screams of outrage had followed him down the corridor of the hotel, and when he’d gained the street, she’d flung open the window of their room to rain curses down on him.

 

 _Might not be such a good idea after all to look her up,_ he decided.  _Better to let that particular sleeping dog lie._

 

Night snuck up on him; the forest around the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle was darker, more sinister seeming than the forest they had traveled through on their way to the Emerald City.  Before he knew it, it was too dark to see the road and its missing paving stones.  Annoyed at himself because he’d been so lost in thought, he gestured toward the side of the road.  “Time to set up for the night,” he muttered.  “JD, I don’t want you goin’ out to hunt anything tonight.”

 

“But why?” JD protested, shaking his half-grown mane.  “I can handle—”

 

“She’s a _witch_ , JD,” Chris said.  “And she shoots fireballs – I’ve seen her do it, and so has the Wizard.  We got plenty to eat without you findin’ your own dinner.  No need for you to risk gettin’ hurt.”

 

Grumbling, JD sat at the edge of the road, as if on the lookout for other travelers, though they hadn’t seen a soul since they’d passed out of sight from the Emerald City.  Buck settled in next to him, resting his head on one golden paw.

 

Chris kept an eye on them as he put together the fire and started dinner.  By the time it was done, Buck was begging at his feet.  JD lurked behind him, eyes glowing gold in the light of the fire.  When Chris dished up their dinner, JD scowled at the plate and picked at the food with his claws.  He ended up sneaking most of it to Buck.  Before Chris had finished, Buck was asleep across his feet and JD had stalked out of the circle of light cast by the flames.

 

 _No sense tryin’ to talk to him now,_ Chris decided.  _Let him get it out of his system… and hope he doesn’t get hurt out there._   He looked at Vin, tilted his head in the direction JD had gone.  Vin nodded and slipped away from the fire, nudging Ezra hard in the shoulder as he did.

 

With a sigh, Ezra pushed himself to his feet, flexed a couple of joints to make sure they were limber enough, and set off in the opposite direction, leaving Chris to clean up the remnants of his dinner.  But instead of doing that right away, he spared a moment to watch the glitter of silver as it disappeared into the shadows.  Once Ezra had disappeared, with only the metallic clink-clunk of his footsteps to mark where he was, Chris shifted his boot from under Buck and started to clean up.

 

It didn’t take very long, and wasn’t nearly as distracting as he’d hoped.  All too soon, he was looking for a place to sleep that wouldn’t be too uncomfortable.

 

There was a downside to having both Ezra and Vin out walking around; it left Chris too alone with his thoughts, especially since JD was still sulking.

 

 _Wish I could think of something besides Ella and the Wicked Witch,_ he grumbled silently.   _Or Ezra._   He settled back against one of the trees, trying to find a position where the bark wasn’t digging into his back.  _Maybe I should just try to get some sleep._

 

Finally he gave up on trying to get comfortable and just pulled his hat down over his eyes.  He was tired enough from walking – _where the hell are all the horses here?_ he wondered again – that he hoped sleep would come quickly.

 

It didn’t, though.

 

So he was still awake when he heard Ezra’s clanking step.  There was a hesitance to it that Chris had not noticed before.  “Mister Larabee?” he called quietly; not nearly loud enough for Chris to have heard him if he’d been asleep. 

 

 _And_ that, Chris thought wryly, _is probably the point._   He pushed his hat back, and sat up away from the tree.  “Ezra.”

 

Ezra gleamed in the moonlight filtering weakly through the leaves, and Chris could see the surprise flit across his face before it was schooled away.  “I was not sure you were still awake.  I wished to discuss with you a… delicate matter, something that I was desirous to have privacy for…”

 

“Ezra, it’s been a long day,” he interrupted, fed up by the way Ezra always seemed to dance around what he wanted to say.  “What do you want to talk about?”

 

Ezra looked away, staring down at the ground, and Chris gave him a moment to marshal his words.  He was surprised when Ezra met his gaze.  “I was perhaps… not entirely forthcoming about how the Wicked Witch of the East transformed me to this metallic state… though of course,” he hastened to add, “that’s not to say that my previous story did not hold _any_ truth whatsoever. Before she turned me to tin, she told me that, as a gambler, the only heart I cared about was the one painted on the cards I held.  Then she smiled quite nastily and said that since I had no care for my heart, she would replace it with one made of clockwork, since that was all I used it for, and give me a body to match.” He paused, as if expecting a reaction.

 

Chris said nothing, digesting Ezra’s words, and waiting for the rest of it, because clearly there was more.

 

Ezra realized that Chris wasn’t going to interrupt his story, even though he’d left space for him to do so.  Slowly, he continued, “I had hoped that the rest of her… malediction was but embroidery, but it appears that it’s as effective as the rest.”

 

“What did she say?” Chris asked.

 

Ezra took an unnecessary breath, then visibly forced himself to face him again.  “She said that I would remain tin until I learned what my heart was for.”

 

After a moment of listening to the crickets chirping, Chris said, “That’s quite a curse.”

 

“Indeed.”  Ezra resumed studying anything but him.  “I had hoped it would dissipate with her demise, but it hasn’t.  Mister Tanner was right when he said the Wizard can’t do anythin’ to help me… he just didn’t know the real reason.”

 

“Guess that means you have to learn what your heart is for, then,” he replied quietly.

 

Out of the darkness, he heard Ezra sigh.  “I’m _tryin’_ , Mister Larabee,” he said, and he sounded irritated and confused and tired.  “But it’s—” He cut himself off.  “I’m tryin’,” he repeated more softly.  Then, his tone becoming brisk, familiar in Chris’s ears, he said, “Good night, Mister Larabee,” and clattered away.

 

Chris stared after him for a moment, then settled his hat again and closed his eyes.  It was some time before he could fall asleep.

 

***

Chris was surprised that he didn’t have to oil Ezra into mobility in the morning, though, upon reflection, he decided he shouldn’t have been.

 

Still, he’d come to expect it as part of his morning ritual, and he didn’t much care for having it disrupted.  He noticed that he was short with the others.  Not for the first time since he’d arrived in this strange place, he wished that he could have some coffee.  Instead, breakfast was consumed in silence, and as soon as their supplies were packed away again, he set of down the road, trusting the others to follow.

 

It wasn’t long before the road they’d followed from the Emerald City lost all its paving stones and was reduced to nothing more than a narrow track through the trees; more evidence, if any was needed, that people simply didn’t travel in this direction.  _She must be a terror,_ Chris thought, picking his way over the tree roots in the path.  _Wonder if anyone else even_ lives _out here…_

 

It was getting close to noon when JD stopped and glanced around at the forest, frowning.  The rest of them halted as well, watching him.  “You guys hear that?” he asked.

 

After a moment, Vin nodded.  “Yeah,” he said, and he, too, looked around, but all there was to be seen were the ancient trees surrounding them and the rough trail winding through them.  “Don’t know what it is, though.”

 

“It doesn’t sound good,” JD fretted. “Wish I could tell where it’s… coming…” Suddenly he looked up, above the tops of the trees.

 

Chris saw that the sky was dark with… something, small moving somethings.  Then he heard what JD and Vin had – the thunderous beat of hundreds of wings, and an unholy shrieking the likes of which he’d never known before.  “Get into the trees!” he ordered.  “They may not be able to get to us there.”  He shoved at JD, but the young lion resisted him.  “Move it, JD!”

 

Reluctantly, JD did as he was bid, and before the first of the shrieking things had landed, they were in the forest, not too deep, but back from the road.

 

The things screamed at them, hovering just above the dirt track.  Some of them tried to fly in between the trees, but their wingspan was too great.

 

“Flying monkeys,” Chris heard Ezra murmur beside him.

 

“You know about these things?” Chris demanded.  They were crouched behind an old log, staring at the monkeys – and now that they had landed, he could see that’s what they were, for he remembered having seen a drawing of monkeys before.

 

“I’ve heard rumors that the Wicked Witch of the West had control of them, but I’ve never seen them,” Ezra corrected him.  “Until now, of course.”

 

Suddenly a monkey much larger than the others dove into the midst of their screeching.  The rest of the monkeys landed on the track in the big one’s wake.  It grunted and pointed, and quite suddenly, the horde of monkeys was organized.  Some took off again, while the rest scrambled through the trees, their wings furled behind them so they wouldn’t get fouled in the branches.

 

Hiding in the forest had seemed like a good idea, but now it definitely wasn’t.  “Run!” Chris shouted.  He pushed away from the log, stumbling as his feet skidded in the fallen leaves.

 

Paw-like hands grabbed at his arm, tugged at his coat, and he cursed, trying to get away from them.  Buck’s frightened yip made him glance around in alarm.  One of the monkeys had captured Buck and was carrying him back to the road.  The dog snarled and snapped, but the monkey held him around the flanks, and Buck couldn’t sink his teeth into anything.

 

“Buck!” Chris changed course and headed back for the road, trying to evade the monkeys reaching out for him.  _Christ, I wish I had more bullets,_ he thought.  _Could just shoot ‘em… or at least enough for the rest of ‘em to decide it ain’t worth it…_

 

He was only a few steps from the monkey holding on to Buck when something latched on to his ankle, and he fell hard, stretching his length on the forest floor.  Decaying leaves filled his vision as he gasped for breath.

 

“Chris!”  Vin called from behind, then, “Damnit, let go of me!”  A series of hollow metallic thumps told him that someone or something was beating on Ezra.

 

Those paws were on him again as a half-dozen of the monkeys took hold of his arms and dragged him back to the road.  _They get me to the road,_ Chris thought, struggling, _they can take off – take me back with ‘em._

 

He’d wanted to get to the Witch’s castle, but he damn well would have preferred it to be on _his_ terms, not hers.

 

No matter how he fought, there were too many monkeys for him to resist; inexorably, they dragged him to the road.  More took hold as he wriggled, and then they all began to beat their wings, hopping along until they were in the air.

 

“Chris!”

 

JD’s roar nearly drowned out Ezra’s shout of Chris’s name, but the monkeys were too far from the ground to be scared by either, and honestly, Chris was glad for it because if they dropped him, he’d be in for some broken bones.

 

When he squirmed around in the monkeys’ grasp to look behind, the others were already too far away to be seen as anything other than splashes of gold and silver against the green of the forest.  Vin was nowhere to be seen, and Chris didn’t like to think about what that meant.  Then the monkeys holding him shrieked at him and tightened their gasps, claws digging into his arms.  He hung still after that, not wanting them to carry out on whatever threat they’d given.

 

The monkeys changed off once during the flight, but it wasn’t very long in the end; they were only in the air about ten minutes before he saw a castle in a clearing in the woods.  Towers rose up to the height of the trees and banners hung limply from the turrets.

 

Moments later, the monkeys circled in for a landing in the castle’s courtyard and unceremoniously dropped Chris on the cobblestones.  Grunting, he rolled over a couple of times from the momentum, and wound up staring at a ring of guardsmen pointing spears at him.  They wore ridiculously furry hats and long coats with tails that flared out behind them.  Chris spat out some dirt and sat up, grinning the grin that had gotten him into all kinds of trouble from Indiana to New Mexico.  “You could have just asked nicely.”

 

“The Mistress wants to see you,” one of the guards said, and since he was wearing a hat that was taller and furrier than the others, Chris decided he was in command.  The guard motioned with his spear.  “Get up.”

 

Slowly, Chris climbed to his feet, spent a moment dusting off his coat and pants.  He saw Buck shaking himself off a few feet away, apparently having had a landing similar to Chris’s own.  Relieved beyond measure – _afraid they would eat him or something_ , he thought – Chris whistled, and Buck trotted toward him.  A different guard prodded him with the butt end of his spear, and Chris leveled a glare at him.  “Poke me again and you might regret it,” he warned coldly.

 

The guard’s eyes widened slightly, but the commander just took hold of Chris’s arm and marched him inside the castle.

 

The transition from the bright sunlight of the courtyard to the darkness inside the castle made Chris blink and shake his head, trying to see.  He paused, but the commander didn’t slow and he stumbled at the sudden jerk on his arm.  “Ease up,” he growled.

 

“This way,” was all the commander said, and dragged him toward a flight of stairs.

 

On the way up the stairs, Chris’s eyes started to adjust.  The walls were made of a dull grey stone, unrelieved by any kind of color or decoration.  It was cool inside, the air damp, and he was glad that he had his coat.

 

The top of the stairs gave out onto a gallery that ran the length of the main hall below.  There were wagon-wheel like chandeliers hanging on chains at varying heights, lighting both the hall and the gallery.  He barely got more than a quick glance around before the commander stopped in front of a heavy oaken door.  He opened it and gestured for Chris to enter.  With a shrug, he did, Buck on his heels.

 

The door thumping shut behind them had a sense of finality.  “Well, Buck,” Chris said, glancing down at the dog.  “Reckon we’ve gotta come up with a way to get out of here damn quick.”

 

The chamber was pretty bare, just like what he’d seen of the rest of the castle; there was a chair and a small table, without even a rug as a barrier to the cold stones of the floor.  The opposite wall was only a couple of strides away, and the small window was barred.

 

Before he could even make it to the window to look out, the door creaked open again, and he knew even as he turned that it could only be the Witch.

 

Somehow, in all the days between the first time he’d seen her in the Land of the Nee and now, he’d forgotten the green tint to her skin.  It made her look… more foreign than he remembered, like she was something other than human.

 

And seeing her face again was a punch to the gut, because even with that greenish cast the witch, this Wicked Witch of the West, was a twin to Ella.

 

He’d thought before that she’d looked familiar, even thought that she looked a bit like Ella – and, he realized, maybe that was why Ella’d been in his thoughts so much recently – but now, the resemblance was unmistakable.

 

 _Maybe,_ he thought, pretending not to watch her, _maybe it_ is _her…_   As quick as the idea had come, though, he dismissed it.  Ella might have been a witch – or something that rhymed with _witch_ , as he’d often called her in his thoughts – but she wasn’t a _Witch_ , like they meant in this strange land of scarecrows and lions that talked and men cursed to be made of tin.

 

The Witch closed the door, then leaned back against it, studying him up and down, like she was trying to figure out how to devour him, and it gave him a jolt, because it was so familiar, something Ella had done nearly every time she’d gotten him alone in whatever room they were staying in.

 

Buck started to growl, just as he had when they’d first arrived, and Chris could see his muscles bunching under his fur.  _Christ, that’s all I need,_ he thought, and grabbed the dog before he could launch himself at the Witch.  Then, straightening, he took the chance to study her again.

 

The Witch looked so much like Ella, but… _It can’t be her_ , he told himself again.  Her features were sharp, with a pointed nose and chin, but no longer quite as delicate as he remembered.  The greenish skin was another point against her.  But even so, he was starting to wonder if he was tallying points in the wrong columns.

 

At last the Witch straightened away from the door, frowning a little, as if he was being uncooperative somehow.  “And what brings you to my humble abode, my pretty?” the Witch asked.  He had to keep himself from shuddering at both the unwanted endearment and the tone in which she said it.

 

He kept silent, watching her, wondering what she was planning.

 

She walked around him, and he fought not to stiffen as she passed behind him.  Instead, he listened carefully to her slow steps, the swish of her dress over the flagstones.  She didn’t say anything, didn’t gloat, so clearly she was waiting for him to answer. It was easy enough to give that to her.

 

“I reckon that’d be your flying monkeys,” he said, lip curled up in a grin.

 

As she came to a halt in front of him again, she licked her lips.  “I reckon you’re right,” she said, imitating his tone, before resuming her natural voice, somewhat less shrill than it had been in the village of the Nee.  “I also know that the Witch of the North would have warned you against me as strongly as he could, and that you’ve been to the Emerald City to see the charlatan Wizard.” She crowded close to him, not quite touching but closer than made him comfortable, particularly with Buck squirming in his hands.  He could feel the snarl rumbling through the dog’s small body.  “Try again, pretty,” she ordered.

 

With a sigh that was only partially feigned, Chris pretended to give in, shoulders slumping a little.  “The Wizard said that you had a charm that might send me back home,” he lied.  He kept a tight hold on the scruff of Buck’s neck, trying to keep him from getting free to savage the Witch’s ankles… or worse.

 

“Oh, I might,” the Witch answered carelessly.  “But why would I want to send you away? I’d much rather have you here.”

 

His mouth fell open at her words.  _What in the hell?_

 

“Surprised, pretty?” She laughed – cackled, more like – and touched his cheek with one cool finger.  “I don’t know why you would be.  I’ve been waiting to see you again for a long time.”

 

He blew out a sigh that he just couldn’t control.  He’d been right and wrong at the same time.  “Ella,” he said, and sounded resigned even to himself.

 

“You _do_ remember,” she purred, and cupped his cheek.  “I knew you would.”

 

It was hard to resist the urge to pull away from her touch.  “How is it that you’re a witch now?”

 

“Chris, my love, I was _always_ a witch.” She gave him an arch look, and it was familiar and strange at the same time; she’d given him that same look years ago, but it was… different with the green cast to her features.  “At the time we were together, I didn’t have my powers.  Once I did come into my powers, I was taken away to Oz.  And while I am overjoyed to see you here, my darling, I’m still very put out that you slipped away.”

 

In the past, that little moue of her mouth had aroused him past reason; now, though, it had little effect.  “Ella, I didn’t _slip away_.  I packed my bags and left in the middle of the day, with you screamin’ bloody murder the whole time.  It’s a wonder the sheriff didn’t come lock either one of us up for disturbin’ the peace.”

 

She gave him a look that said, _Well, of_ course _you remember it that way,_ and he sighed, shaking his head.  _Don’t see how she can be so blind,_ he thought.  “Ella…”

 

“It’ll be different, Chris,” she said, voice low and so sincere, the way it sounded every time she swore that this would be the last time she flirted with any other fellow.  “It’ll be so much better now… we can be so happy.” She reached out to touch his cheek again, and he let Buck have just enough leeway to snap at her.  She jerked away, brows lowering, features hardening in anger.

 

“I’m havin’ a hard time believin’ you… and I think Buck is, too.”  Chris smirked at her over Buck’s head.

 

“You’ll change your mind soon enough,” she said, lips curling in a familiar smile that he’d never realized was so vicious before.

 

“How do you figure that?”

 

“Because you’re going to stay here, darling,” Ella replied.  “You’re going to give me my sister’s silver spurs and stay right here with me, like you should have all those years ago.”

 

Chris studied her a moment.  “What if I don’t?”

 

Immediately, rage contorted her features, and _this_ wasn’t new, this was something he’d seen time and again when he’d somehow kept her from getting her way.  “You’re going to stay here with me,” she said, like it was a vow.  “And we’ll be happy, just like we used to be, the way we were _meant_ to be!”

 

Her vehemence made him want to recoil, but he kept himself from showing his surprise, except for the way his fingers tightened in Buck’s fur.  “We were never happy,” he replied.  “You liked the way I fought, and we just… fought all the time.  Even in bed.”

 

“That’s not true!” Ella went from anger to pleading in an instant, and Chris remembered how he’d always gotten dizzy from her quicksilver emotional turns.  “Chris, you loved me then, and I loved you.  I still love you.” She reached out again, then thought better of it as Buck growled at the movement.  “We _can_ be happy, and you know it.  You just have to stay, to live here with me.  We can turn it all around, darling…”

 

“Ella, I don’t want to live here with you,” he said, unbearably weary.  “I just want to go home.  I don’t belong here in this world.”

 

Her face darkened in anger.  “You’ll stay here with me, Chris,” she hissed.  “I didn’t wait all these years for you to walk away from me again!”

 

“Ella...”  But she’d already whirled away, black skirts flaring wide, and stalked back toward the door.

 

“I’ll come back in one hour, Chris,” she called from the door.  “And you’d better be willing to give me those spurs and stay here with me.  You won’t like the other option.”

 

“What other option?”  But his words were lost in the slam of the heavy door.  He scowled at it, then released Buck and stepped over to the barred window.  The bars were too thick to even consider forcing, and the spaces between them too narrow for him to slip through.  With a huff, he turned away again, staring at the door. “There’s gotta be some way to get that open…”

 

The only indication Chris got that Buck was doing more than just sitting quietly where he’d been let go was the scuffle of claws on stone.  He spun back toward the window, just in time to see Buck skin through the bars and give him a doggy grin.  Then the dog gathered himself and leapt down, and when Chris pressed himself against the bars to look down, he could see that there was a series of blocks that jutted out from the rest of the wall, starting just below the window.  He watched Buck trot down the stair-like blocks until they curved out of sight, then sighed.  _Least Buck got away,_ he thought.

 

Then he got to thinking about it, and laughed quietly.  _Buck’ll find the others,_ he thought, _and he’ll lead them all up here and maybe Ezra can bust down that door with his axe…_

 

He chafed a little at the necessity of being rescued, then leaned back in the room’s chair and tugged his hat brim down over his eyes.  _It’ll be a while before Ella comes back or they find me,_ he thought.  _Might as well get a nap._

 

What woke him again was the muffled commotion outside the door.  It couldn’t have been an hour, so that meant that it wasn’t Ella, and anyway, she wouldn’t have any reason not to barge right in, so…

 

Chris stood up and leaned against the door.  “Vin?” he called softly.  “Ezra? JD?  That you?”

 

JD exclaimed, “Yes!” but was quickly shushed by both Vin and Ezra.  “Yes, it’s us,” he repeated more quietly.  “Buck found us, and…”

 

“That’s good,” he interrupted.  “But you reckon you could get me out of here before the Witch comes back?  She wants me to give her the spurs or she’s gonna take ‘em, and I don’t want to be around when she gets back.”

 

“Yeah, just hang on,” Vin replied.  “Ezra, get choppin’.”

 

“One moment, Mister Tanner.” There was a clang, and then the door shuddered in its frame as Ezra swung his axe into it.  Chris could hear the wood crack even through the thick planks.

 

After about the seventh or eighth blow, the planks near the lock started to splinter on Chris’s side of the door, and he moved back.

 

“Better hurry up, Ezra,” Vin directed, his voice muted by distance and the wood that still stood between them.  “Sounds like we’re about to have company.”

 

“I’m workin’ as fast as I can,” Ezra bit out, accent heavy on his words.  “But if you think you can do better, by all means…”

 

Chris snorted.  “Just keep at it, Ezra,” he ordered, pitching his voice to carry through the door.  “Couple more oughtta do it.”

 

He heard Ezra grumble, though he couldn’t make out the words.  But the wood around the lock gave way at the next blow of the axe; one more forced it open, and it swung lazily on its hinges.

 

Chris pulled it all the way open and stepped out, nearly tripping over Buck, who yipped at him in excitement.  “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, and picked the dog up.  “You did good.”

 

“Think it’s about time we got outta here,” Vin said, heading toward the sweeping staircase.  “C’mon.”

 

Now that he was on the right side of the door, Chris could hear the heavy pounding of footsteps and the clatter of weapons.  “You don’t know how right you are,” he replied, pushing past JD and Ezra.  “Ella’s got it in her head—”

 

“Ella?”  Three voices repeated the name together.  Vin even stopped on the stairs to look at him, eyebrows raised.

 

Chris rolled his eyes, heading down the stairs to the ground floor quick as he could.  “The Wicked Witch of the West,” he said, carefully enunciating every word.  “She’s… a girl I knew back home.” He didn’t hear their steps following, and sighed, pausing to glance over his shoulder.  They stood grouped at the top of the stairs, looking at him with mouths hanging open.  “It’s a long story, and I ain’t stoppin’ to tell it now. Let’s go.”

 

At last the three of them started to move, but even that short pause had been too long to wait.  All through the great hall, there was a thunder of footsteps, and as he hurried down the last curve of the staircase, he saw a group of the Witch’s guards moving toward him.  The guards gave a yell when they saw him, speeding up, and quickly he spun around.  “Back!” he shouted, pushing at JD to go up the stairs again.

 

“We can’t go back in that room,” Ezra said as he rushed past.  He stayed behind a moment to push the lead guard backwards down the stairs; the rest of the squadron fell in a tangle of limbs as he tumbled into them.

 

“Nope,” Chris agreed, and headed along the gallery.  From his brief glimpse earlier, it had looked like it overlooked the whole of the great hall – it ran along both long walls and also across the far end, forming a U.  _Maybe we can circle around and not run into any more guards,_ he thought.

 

But as they hurried around the gallery and down the other long side, Chris saw some guards pick themselves up from where they’d fallen down the stairs.  They broke off from the main group of guards and headed toward the base of the other staircase.

 

“Shit! Back the other way!” Chris shouted, only to have JD run smack into him as he spun around.  He staggered and only JD reaching out to wrap his paws around his arms kept him upright.  A little dazed, he pushed until JD also turned around.

 

They were in the middle of the short part of the gallery, traversing the width of the hall, when they saw the other half of the guard squadron running toward them to cut them off.

 

Chris dared a glance over the edge of the gallery, but it was too far to fall without breaking any bones, even if they sent Vin over first to cushion the landing.  _Ezra’d probably break off his legs,_ he thought, chest a little tight.  _And we’d never be able to put Vin back together before the guards were on us again…_

 

Within moments, they were trapped on the gallery, right up against the cold dank wall, surrounded by guards on either side.  JD growled at the guards, and some of them flinched at the fierce sound, but the ring of spears didn’t subside.

 

“Well, well, what have we here?”

 

Chris’s heart sank as Ella’s voice reached them from behind the guards.  _Well, shit_ , he thought, and braced himself for her to continue her attempt to make him stay.  _She’s not gonna be happy,_ he thought quite suddenly, and couldn’t help but conjure up unpleasant scenarios where Ella took her anger at him out on his friends.  _She wasn’t like that when I knew her before,_ he thought, watching as the guards made a path for her to sweep through.  _But these witchy powers she’s somehow gotten… they ain’t made her any better._   He swallowed.  _She never did like losin’…_

 

Ella surveyed his friends.  “A scarecrow, a man made of tin and a lion cub,” she said, shaking her head.  “I can’t believe you were going to leave me for _them_ , Chris.  I can’t express to you how hurt I am.”

 

“Then you must not have been listenin’ when I told you I didn’t want to stay,” Chris replied, voice sharp.

 

“Why do you insist on being so awful to me?” she asked, sniffling theatrically.  “I love you!”

 

“Maybe so, but Ella, I don’t love you.”

 

“And this is meant to _help_?” Ezra asked under his breath.

 

Instead of growing angry, she just smiled, and Chris felt a shiver run down his back at the sight.  “You do, darling,” she said, and it sounded like a vow.  “But these… _friends_ of yours have turned your head… and I’ll do whatever I have to so we can be together.”

 

“Damnit, JD, will you _stop_?” Vin demanded. The lion was trying to push between Vin and Ezra; he clearly wanted to attack Ella.  “You stay back, stay in front of Chris.”

 

“But she’s gonna _hurt_ us!” JD protested.  Chris knew the young lion was stronger than Vin’s straw muscles, and probably could have bent Ezra’s hollow tin arms without much effort, but JD was trying not to injure his friends.  “Let me bite her!”

 

“You’ll catch somethin’,” was Vin’s short reply.  Between their legs, Buck snapped and snarled, and Ezra tried to keep him back with one foot.

 

“You see, Chris?” Ella said, her face crumpling as if she were about to cry.  “It’s no wonder that you think you don’t love me when they say things like that!”

 

Ezra snorted.  “Madam, trust me – Mister Larabee has greater reasons than just _us_ not to love you.”

 

Ella’s pout disappeared as if it had never been, morphing into a smile that sent a chill down Chris’s back. “It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed anything this much.  But I am going to enjoy getting rid of you all, even that mangy little dog.”

 

“Ella,” Chris called, shoving at JD’s back, but JD stood stubbornly still in front of him, keeping him pressed against the wall.  “Ella, hurtin’ my friends ain’t gonna make me love you!”

 

“We’ll see about that,” she purred in response.  “Who first, who first?”  She glanced up, and her evil smile widened.  “Oh, that’ll do nicely…”

 

“JD, _move!_ ” Chris ordered.  The lion flinched, gave him a doubtful glance over his shoulder, but didn’t move.

 

“We can start with a little fire,” Ella said, her voice cheerful and wicked all at once, and reached up with her broom to one of the wagon wheel-shaped chandeliers that swung above them.  The broom started to smolder, then burn, and she brought it down again, brandishing it at Vin.  “What do you think, scarecrow?  Think it’ll hurt?”

 

Vin watched the fire with caution, but no real fear, even when she brushed the broom against his arm and some of the merrily crackling bristles caught hold fire there.  Ezra tried to bat out the flames, while Vin used his other arm to keep JD from attacking Ella.

 

Chris cast about, pressed behind the other three like he needed to be protected; he couldn’t even draw his gun or he’d risk shooting one of them instead of Ella.  His eye caught on a mop and bucket off to one side.  Moving quickly, he grabbed the bucket and tossed it at the flames licking up Vin’s arm.

 

Some of the water flew past Vin and splashed in Ella’s face.  She shrieked, belatedly raising her hands.  “What have you done?” she demanded, and covered her face.

 

Chris watched in horrified fascination as Ella began to shrink, clothes billowing about her more and more as she continued to wail.  “Oh, Chris, how could you?” she asked.  “How could you?”  In less than a minute, her clothes and pointed hat fell to the floor in a heap, empty.  The broomstick clattered next to them.

 

Slowly, Chris set down the bucket, then looked at his companions.  Buck, fearless as usual, had snuck forward to sniff at the pile of clothes, while JD glanced between him and the bucket and the spot where Ella had stood with something like awe painted over his features.  Vin’s arm was singed, the remaining straw heavy with water, and it hung limp at his side. 

 

“You all right?” he asked, nodding toward Vin’s arm.

 

Vin shrugged carefully.  “Guess so,” he replied.  “Patch up the shirt, replace the straw, be good as new.”

 

The guard Chris recognized as the commander shook off his shock and stepped forward, the wide bell of his coat swinging.  “You killed her.”  The other guards shuffled and muttered behind him.

 

Chris glanced over at the heap of black cloth, repressed a shudder, then faced the guard, hand on the butt of his gun.  “I didn’t mean to – didn’t know that she would melt away like that.”

 

The commander waved away his words, and all of a sudden, there was _life_ in his features, where before there had been nothing.  “No, no… I mean, you killed her and now we’re free.”   The guards at his back broke into a ragged cheer.

 

Chris felt the tension slowly seep from his body.  _Guess they ain’t gonna take exception to this after all,_ he thought.  “So we’re free to go now?”

 

“Of course!” the guard replied.  “We won’t hold you here if you wish to depart.  We only did so before because we risked our families if we did not obey.”

 

“Her broom, Mister Larabee,” Ezra hissed in his ear.  “We need—”

 

“I didn’t forget,” he retorted over his shoulder, tone curt, before turning back to the guard.  “Can we have her broomstick?”

 

“Take it with you!” The guard swooped up Ella’s broomstick, bristles burnt short, and presented it to Chris with a flourish.  “And good luck.”

 

“Thanks.” Gingerly, Chris took the broomstick, but it didn’t feel like anything other than wood and straw, didn’t make his fingers tingle at the touch, so he tried not to think about what it really was.  Then he turned to the others.  “You boys ready to go?”

 

Without hesitation, Ezra responded, “Lead the way, Mister Larabee.”

 

***

The morning that Josiah had chosen to leave the Emerald City dawned clear, the sky blue and nearly cloudless.  Chris felt a sense of relief at the good weather, then put it from his mind.

 

He was leaving today.  _No_ , he told himself firmly, _I’m_ goin’ home _today._  

 

When he stepped out of his room it was to find Vin, Ezra and JD waiting for him.  JD was mournful, as if Chris going home wasn’t at all a cause for celebration.  Even his mane looked flat and droopy.  Vin seemed troubled, while Ezra’s tin features gave nothing away… but Chris could tell, just from the fact that he was trying to have no expression, that Ezra was as distressed as the others at his departure.

 

He’d made it plain over the past few days that he was leaving – going home.  But this morning, Chris found himself wondering; if one of them asked one more time if he would stay… would he?

 

He turned it over and over in his mind as he and Buck and JD ate some breakfast.  The only sound in the dining room was the echo of utensils scraping over plates.  JD played with the food on his plate and shoved it away without having taken more than a bite or two.  Even Ezra was silent, and _that_ , even more than his lack of expression, told Chris that he was upset.

 

Before he could come to a conclusion on what to do, though, Josiah strode into the dining room, wearing a big toothy grin.  “There you are!  Chris, you ready to go?”

 

Chris looked down at his plate, and discovered that, like JD, he’d been playing with it more than eating; fully half his breakfast was still there.  He shoved it away and stood, what little appetite he’d had gone.  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, and picked up Buck from where he was licking his plate clean.  “C’mon, Buck.”

 

JD frowned at the words, but still got up when Vin and Ezra did.  Josiah gave them all a searching look, then silently led them out into the main courtyard for the castle.

 

It was filled with people, all dressed in green, standing politely as possible even as more people tried to crowd in behind them.  Along one side, against the city wall, stood a short platform, tall as a man and decorated with green bunting.  At the end of the platform, bobbing lightly against its tethers, sat Josiah’s balloon.  It was made of various shades of green cloth, and the basket beneath it looked just barely big enough for him and Josiah.  Staring at the balloon, Chris wondered idly which had come first – the flying Wizard or the Emerald City.

 

 _Reckon it doesn’t matter anyway,_ he thought, and glanced out over the crowd. _They’re losin’ their Wizard, but I guess all the green has stuck by now._

 

As Josiah stepped onto the platform, the people in the courtyard cheered, some of them lifting their arms to wave frantically.

 

 _They like him well enough,_ Chris thought, surprised at the reaction.  _Wonder why, if he spends all his time meditatin’ and bein’ watched by that guard.  Well, I suppose I’ll have time to ask him before we get back._

 

Josiah’s voice boomed out over the crowd, saying good bye to the people who’d taken him in when he’d arrived.  The people cheered each time he paused for breath, but he could see some of them dabbing at their eyes with pale green squares of cloth.

 

“Chris?” Josiah asked after the loudest cheer yet had died away.   Chris blinked and saw that Josiah had a hand on the basket of the balloon, looking at him expectantly. “Time to go.”

 

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head to clear it.  He’d been holding Buck all this time; the dog had seemed… twitchy, nervous, like he knew what was coming and wanted no part of flying.  Back home, Buck had already proven to Chris that he could slip a collar in the blink of an eye, so that wouldn’t work, and rather than waste any time trying to track him down, he’d decided it was best to just keep him close.

 

There were a group of fellows working around the basket, working on the ropes that kept the balloon tethered to the platform.  They were all dressed alike, like it was some kind of livery or something.  The ropes, Chris noticed, were wound around the posts of the platform.  The balloon bobbed above the crowd, the basket thumping hollowly against the planks, but the ropes kept it from moving too far up in the air.

 

Josiah swung himself over the lip of the basket, and it rocked with his weight. He swayed with the motion until he managed to find his balance again, then carefully shuffled over to one side, motioning for Chris to climb in.  Tucking Buck carefully under one arm, Chris hitched himself in as well.  The basket lurched under his weight and he caught himself one handed against the rim.  Buck squirmed and Chris quickly shifted his grip to hold him tighter.

 

At a nod from Josiah, the fellows in the livery unwound the hawsers from the posts and tossed the loops of rope into the basket.  One of them landed heavily on his foot and he nudged it aside.

 

A few seconds later, though, that didn’t matter.  The basket swung a little, and slowly, slowly lifted from the platform.  Chris felt his stomach sink a little as they rose, as if he were getting used to the motion.  _Goin’ home,_ he thought, and let out a breath.

 

But then Buck squirmed, wriggling his way out of his hands.  He landed on the platform and took off into the crowd, yelping excitedly.

 

“Buck!” Chris shouted, and swung himself out over the lip of the basket.  “Come back here, you mangy ball of fur!”  He hurried after the dog, trying to keep from pushing and shoving too many of the folk who’d come to see off their Wizard.  “Buck!”

 

“Chris, don’t!” he heard Josiah shout behind him, deep voice carrying easily.  “Come back, before—”

 

Snarling and growling rose above the noise of the crowd, and Chris pushed through to find Buck circling another dog, about his size, but the color of coffee.  That the brown dog was a bitch was easy to see, as was the fact that she wasn’t interested in Buck’s attentions.  She snapped at Buck, sharp teeth bared in an angry growl.  Buck wouldn’t stay away, though, and every time he got too close, she tried to bite him.

 

“Buck!” Chris was about ready to do some growling of his own.  He grabbed Buck, wrapped his hands around the dog’s sides and swooped him up, away from the fierce little bitch he’d been so intent on mounting.  “She don’t want you, you stupid mutt,” he gritted out, furious, and had to shift him into a better hold so the dog didn’t wiggle away again.  “Besides, we’re goin’ home, why do you gotta do this _right now_?”

 

He hurried back to the platform, but even as he ran, his heart sank.  The balloon was still going up and up; it was already higher than his head, higher than he could jump, and he couldn’t hold on to Buck and grab hold of the basket at the same time.  By the time he was up on the platform again, the balloon was almost as high as a tree top.  Josiah was tinkering frantically with the apparatus that heated the air in the balloon, but couldn’t make it stop spitting out flame.

 

“Josiah!” Chris called, running to the far end of the platform; he could hear the others behind him.  But the balloon was already far past them all.

 

“I’m sorry, Chris,” Josiah bellowed back.  “I can’t get it to come back down!”  He waved his hat.  “Look me up when you get home!  I’ll be in—” A gust of wind whipped his words away; it sounded like he said _Omaha_ , but Chris couldn’t be sure.

 

And that was his one chance to get home, floating away.  Anger warred with defeat.  “Damnit, Buck!” Chris snarled.  He let go of the dog, bending only slightly to drop him to the planks of the platform.  “How many times have I told you that one of these bitches is gonna get you shot?  Today might be the day!”  If Buck hadn’t already looked about as contrite as a dog could look – on his belly, ears flattened, eyes full of remorse – Chris believed he might really have shot him.  “That bitch didn’t want nothin’ to do with you, but still you had to chase her!  How in the hell are we gonna get home now?”

 

“Is it such a hardship to stay, Mister Larabee?” Ezra asked quietly.

 

And just like that, his anger bled away.  _What do I got to go back to, anyway?_ he asked himself.  _Just that piece of land that don’t even have a cabin on it anymore…_   “No, Ezra,” he replied in the same tone, shoulders slumping a little. “It’s not.  But I don’t feel like I belong here, either.”  He peered up toward Josiah’s balloon, now little more than a dot in the distance.  “Guess I do now.”

 

Without warning, the crowd started to murmur excitedly around the platform.  He glanced around, puzzled, then up, away from Josiah’s balloon, when he saw where they were pointing.

 

The bubble floating down from the sky was familiar, as was the tall man who stepped out when it landed on the platform that had lately held the balloon.

 

“Nathan!” Chris called, and strode back toward the stairs, Buck at his heels.

 

“I reckon that balloon was your way home.  Why ain’t you on it?” Nathan asked, eyeing him narrowly.  He crossed his arms.

 

Chris glared down at Buck, who lay down with his muzzle on his paws, looking guilty again.  “ _Someone_ had to go chasing a girl who wasn’t interested,” he bit out.

 

Nathan’s lips twitched.  “That so?”   To Buck, he said, “You ain’t learnt your lesson yet?”

 

The dog blinked up at him solemnly, and Chris rolled his eyes.  “Reckon he ain’t learnt a damn thing.”

 

“Well, maybe he’ll learn something once y’all are home again.”

 

Chris sighed.  “Nathan, you already said that balloon was my way home.  I’m not on it, so I guess I’m stayin’ here.”

 

Nathan shook his head.  “No, there’s one more way for you to get back to where you came from, and it don’t involve bein’ at the whim of the winds.”

 

“Yeah?” he challenged.  “What is it?  There another witch I gotta get rid of somehow?”

 

“All you have to do is tap those silver spurs together three times and say a simple little spell, and you’ll be back home in just about three steps.” Nathan waggled the fingers of one hand in the air.  “Magic.”

 

It took a moment for Nathan’s words to sink in, but when they did, Chris gave him a fearsome glare.  “You mean to tell me I could have gone home anytime?” he demanded, bristling.  _Could have been home days and days ago!_ he thought, and his hand hovered over the butt of his gun.  Buck sensed his mood and rolled to a sitting position to stare disapprovingly at the witch.

 

Nathan raised his hands and took a prudent step back.  “Well… yeah.  But would you’a believed me if I’d said that right at the start?”

 

He took a moment to think about that, then blew out a breath.  “Guess you got a point.”

 

Nathan nodded.  “Damn straight.  Now, you wanna get home, click those silver spurs together and say ‘There’s no place like home.’  You’ll be back where you belong in no time.”

 

“That’s it?”  He gave Nathan a doubtful look.  Compared to what he’d had to go through so far, it was just too simple.

 

With a grin, Nathan shrugged.  “That’s it.  Nothin’ more to it than that.”  Then his grin softened, and he nodded toward Vin, Ezra and JD, standing at the far end of the platform, staring back at them.  “Gonna say goodbye first, maybe?”

 

“Yeah.”  Chris jerked his head, signaling them to come over.  The platform wasn’t so big that they couldn’t have heard what he and Nathan were talking about anyway.  Watching Nathan warily – which only made the witch roll his eyes – they joined them.

 

“Another witch?” JD asked, flexing his front paws.  “Should we take care of him like the other one?”

 

Chris grinned at Nathan’s huff.  “No, JD, Nathan’s on our side.  He just told me how I can get home, even though Josiah’s already flown off.”

 

“Really?” JD asked, his face falling.  “I was… well, I was kinda hopin’ you stay now.”

 

“Yeah, I know,” he replied quietly, patting the young lion on the shoulder.  “But I… I don’t really belong here, you know that.  Even if the people here are nice and welcomin’ to strangers.”

 

JD nodded, then straightened and held out one of his paws.  “I didn’t say it before, but… good luck, Chris.”

 

Chris took his paw in hand and gave him a firm shake.  “Thanks, JD.”  His throat closed up a little, and he couldn’t say the things that he wanted – that JD had grown so much in just the short time they’d been traveling together, that he’d make a fine king of the forest when he went back to his home.   Instead, he just hoped the kid would _know_ and offered him a tiny smile.  “Good luck to you, too,” he said, and didn’t care that his voice was rough.

 

Then he saw Buck pawing at JD’s leg, trying to get his attention.  Rather than watch the two of them say goodbye, he turned to Ezra instead.  “You got your oilcan?” he asked.

 

Ezra gave him a sour look.  “Not at this very moment, Mister Larabee,” he replied, “though it is easily accessible if I should need it.”

 

He grinned, watched Ezra bristle a little more.  “Good thing, seeing how often you need it.”  Then, more seriously, he added, “I’d hate to think of you all rusted solid again.”

 

He thought he saw a hint of a blush cross over Ezra’s cheeks, but of course it couldn’t have been anything but a reflection.  “I must admit, I’ve gotten rather used to you… lubricating me in the mornin’,” he replied.

 

Chris’s grin widened.  “Well, with any luck, you’ll undo the Witch’s curse soon enough and no one will have to… lubricate you in the mornin’.”

 

“Perhaps, Mister Larabee,” Ezra allowed, and Chris caught a sense of… gravity, maybe even of sadness in Ezra’s tone that he’d never heard before.  “You’ve said often enough that you don’t belong here with us, but I—” His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and what he said next was clearly not what he’d originally meant to say.  “I shall miss you.”

 

The quiet words made Chris think again about what he had to go back to and what he could have here, and his throat closed up.  Somehow, though, through that choking tightness, he managed, “I’ll miss you, too, Ezra.”

 

The look Ezra gave him was easy to read; without words, he was clearly saying _then why don’t you stay?_   But Chris didn’t have an answer for that question that he hadn’t already given.

 

 _Maybe,_ he thought, _maybe… I can find them back home.  I could find JD and Vin and Ezra there, maybe be friends with them._   It settled him a little, just that faint glimmer of hope that he could have something like what he was giving up.  It let him smile at Ezra, easy and warm, let the clasp of his hand in Ezra’s cool tin one linger.

 

When he turned to Vin, there wasn’t any need for words.  He didn’t have to say how much he was going to miss him, because Vin already knew.  Instead, he held out his hand, and Vin clasped his arm just below his elbow.  Then they each let go with a nod, and it was done.

 

Chris faced Nathan again.  “Reckon I’m ready now.”

 

“All right then,” Nathan said, nodding.  “Just close your eyes, click the spurs and say the words.”

 

“Why do I gotta close my eyes?” he asked suspiciously.

 

The good witch sighed.  “’Cause if you don’t, you’re liable to fall over halfway home,” he retorted with no little exasperation.  “Then where the hell would ya be?”

 

“Dodge City, probably,” Chris replied with a cheeky grin.  “But hell, I could get home from there.”  He whistled sharply.  “Buck! Get over here.”

 

The dog padded over, JD looking forlorn behind him.  “Come on,” Chris said, and picked the dog up once more.  “You try to chase another bitch and I’m leavin’ you here,” he warned.  Buck didn’t move, so he figured the dog understood.

 

He backed off a couple steps from the others, just in case this spell had some punch to it.

 

“Watch out for the sparks!” Nathan called, teeth white and blinding as he grinned.  “You’ll light your ass on fire if you ain’t careful!”

 

Chris gave that piece of advice the consideration it deserved, closed his eyes and clicked the spurs.

 

***

Chris blinked up at the darkened ceiling and spent a sleepy moment wondering what had woken him before recalling the dream.  It had been incredibly vivid, almost too real to be _just_ a dream.

 

The familiar contours of the ceiling resolved out of the darkness, and he relaxed into the bed.  It _had_ been just a dream.  He was where he belonged, and the soft sleeping breaths from next to him told him that he wasn’t alone. He let out his breath in one long exhale and closed his eyes.  _It didn’t actually happen_ , he told himself.

 

Those slow, deep breaths from beside him were welcome and familiar; he knew the pattern of Ezra’s breath as well as he knew the feel of his gun.  He let that familiar rhythm soothe him until it washed away the last bit of loss from his dream.  Even more calming, however, was the knowledge that if he moved his hand even a little, he’d find Ezra’s own, the warm flesh of his body; that if he woke Ezra, Ezra would grumble at him a little, but would still sleepily welcome nearly anything Chris wanted.

 

He sighed softly, let his hand drift to the side to feel Ezra’s skin, smooth and supple under his fingers.  It wasn’t anything more than a brush of his hand against Ezra’s, a light touch to reassure himself that they were safe, together.  Ezra let out a soft sound, a murmured question, unintelligible, but settled again when Chris stroked his arm.

 

As Ezra relaxed back into his pillow, Chris’s thoughts turned again to the strange land where it felt like he’d spent so many days.  It had been so clear, so strongly _real_ , that it was hard to believe that it was just a dream.

 

But it had to have been; there was no way it could have actually happened.  It hadn’t been at all like the world he knew, so it _had_ to have been a dream… Not to mention that even in the dream’s “original” world, things hadn’t been like life as he knew it.

 

Seeing his friends in such different guises – being so different himself – was part and parcel of how bizarre the dream had been.  Magic worked, there were such things as witches and wizards and no one even twitched at the idea.

 

Having his friends there – however changed some of them had been – had been… comforting. 

 

The last time Buck had called him _old dog_ took on a whole new meaning, however.  Chris’s lips twitched in the darkness.  _Be hard pressed not to laugh the next time he does that. Gotta admit, though… it suited him._

 

 _Even so, I wonder why I brought everyone into that dream,_ he asked himself, frowning a little, then rubbed a hand over his face.  _Can’t hardly say it was a dream, everything felt so… true._   Everything he’d felt and experienced in that other world had been so immediate, so _present_ , that it was difficult to say it was _just a dream._

 

But in fact, it couldn’t have been anything _other_ than a dream, because this was his cabin, the one he’d built with his own two hands and some help from Vin… the very one that had crashed down in that other world and killed the witch.  _The first witch_ , he amended.  _Mary._ He smirked up at the dark of the ceiling. _Guess I’ve been listenin’ too much to Ezra,_ he thought, _if I’m castin’ Mary as a witch in my dreams…_

 

Then he sobered a little.  _At least I got the other witch right._

 

He didn’t like having Ella in his dreams, even when she got what she deserved in the end.  It was too hard to remember what she’d cost him, and what she’d _nearly_ cost him.  The grief was tempered a little by distance and years now, and he didn’t have to work so much to push it away… but it was still there.

 

Recalling what had happened to Ella in his dream, he let out a breath.  He’d killed her; he hadn’t entirely _meant_ to, and the means was simply improbable, but he _had._   Ella hadn’t managed to escape justice in reality, either, but even with all the wrongs she’d done him, he still hadn’t killed her.  The Judge had made sure she’d found justice at the end of a rope instead.

 

He recalled his dream-self’s thought regarding Ella and possibly trying to find her once more, and shuddered at the very idea.  It had been bad enough that he’d told his friends that he wasn’t going back to town with them, that he was going to stay with Ella… _I didn’t know then,_ he reminded himself, swallowing.  _I didn’t know what she’d done._

 

Beside him, Ezra stirred, rolling onto his side facing Chris, and the movement jarred Chris from his dark reminiscence.  The warm hand that settled on his stomach grounded him, and he laid his own hand over Ezra’s, waiting for Ezra to speak, to tell him to stop thinking and get some rest.  But Ezra said nothing; he was still asleep.

 

Chris blew out a breath and tried to let Ella go.  _Reckon the stupidest thing about that damned dream was that I didn’t want to_ stay _there,_ he thought.  _What did I have that I wanted to go_ home _so badly?  No friends to speak of, no family…_

 

It would have been so much easier if his life had been like it had in the dream, if he hadn’t married, if he’d just drifted from town to town searching for work and trying to save enough money to build up his own ranch.  In _that_ world, Ella hadn’t killed his wife and son, because he hadn’t had any.

 

 _But she was just as evil as she was in this world,_ he reminded himself, then cursed and shoved the witch out of his thoughts again.  _And Mary ain’t evil at all… or maybe she ain’t all evil._   He huffed a soft laugh, little more than a breath of sound.  It made Ezra stir beside him again as his hand crept over to stroke Chris’s side, but then he was still again.

 

It didn’t matter, in the end.  There were no witches, Ella was dead, and Mary was his friend and nothing more.  His friends were his friends, no matter what strange forms they took in his dreams.

 

Slowly, it dawned on him why he had continually said that he wanted to go home in that dream when there was so little to go home _to_.  _Maybe I was just tryin’ to wake up, tryin’ to get back_ here.  He nodded, content with that reasoning.  _Makes sense – I didn’t know any of them in either place in the dream, but they’re all_ here.  _Yeah, that must be it._

 

He hadn’t wanted it – had fought like hell against it at times – but the other men he protected the town with had become as close to family as he was like to have again.  They were _here_ , in this world, the _real_ world, not that other place where he’d just drifted through his life.

 

 _And Ezra’s here in my bed,_ he thought, a slow smile stretching his lips.

 

Just for a moment, he debated whether or not he should wake Ezra up; listening to him grouch about being awoken in the middle of the night would be a small price to pay for heady kisses and lingering touches…

 

 _I’ve been awake for quite a while, and if he ain’t woken up yet… I must have worn him out._   Well, that was all right, too.

 

With a smug little grin, he shifted a little, rolling over to drape his arm over Ezra’s side, and his ass… _burned_.

 

Well, it didn’t actually _burn_ , but Nathan’s warning as the good witch was still echoing in his mind.  No, it was more of an ache, a pain that was almost pleasant, that somehow filled him with warmth.

 

And _that_ , oddly enough, was just the confirmation he needed to make him certain that strange world had only been a dream, because he recalled in… _very_ satisfying detail what had _really_ made his ass burn, and it sure as hell hadn’t been sparks from his damn spurs.

 

Smiling, Chris fell back to sleep.

 

***

December 2, 2013

**Author's Note:**

> Blame-laying is a must for a piece of crack like this. I totally lay the blame at the feet of [DichotomyStudios](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DichotomyStudios/pseuds/DichotomyStudios) and [farad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad), based on their comments [here](http://randi2204.dreamwidth.org/74893.html?thread=211341#cmt211341) and [here](http://randi2204.dreamwidth.org/74893.html?thread=212621#cmt212621), respectively.


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